PHOTOGRAPHS show a cuddly looking grandfather with a big white fluffy beard. He was one of the most important inventors in world history.

Alexander Graham bell patented the first telephone. Sensibly, he refused to have one in his study: too distracting.

Bell was born at South Charlotte Street, Edinburgh, on 3 March 1847. His father, also Alexander, was a phonetician and elocutionist. Born just “Alexander Bell”, the boy begged for a middle name like his two brothers had and, as a cheap present, his father granted him this boon on his 11th birthday. The Graham under advisement was a family friend.

The child Bell gathered botanical specimens, conducted experiments and, aged 12, built a de-husking machine that was used for years at a friend’s family flour mill. Kids, eh? Alexander was also good at mimicry, with which he entertained visitors. A swell night out at the Bells’.

In 1863, Alexander’s father took him to see an automaton or “mechanical man” that simulated a human voice. This monstrosity was based on the work of Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. Aye, him. Fascinated, young Alexander scored a copy of his book. In German.

After translating it, he and his brother built an automaton’s heid that could speak, though it was not the best conversationalist. After a bellows forcing air through the windpipe, “Mama” emerged from the lips, providing more entertainment for despairing family visitors.

Alexander taught the family’s Skye terrier, Trouve, to growl continuously and, by manipulating its lips, got it to produce “Ow ah oo ga ma ma”: “How are you, grandmama?” It’s a wonder he didn’t just quit then, while he was ahead. 

Bell despaired of his mother’s gradual deafness, devising various methods to help her hear (including speaking directly into her foreheid). This concern fuelled his later interest in acoustics.

The Herald:

Bell tries out his invention

 

Page boys
Eck’s grandfather, father and uncle were all elocutionists. His father’s Standard Elocutionist, published in Edinburgh in 1868, sold a quarter of a million copies in the United States over the years.

Its contents included showing deaf-mutes (as they were then known) how to articulate words and read lip movements. Young Alexander learned this “visible speech” and became part of his father’s public demonstrations, deploying it in any language, including Latin, Gaelic and Sanskrit.

At age 11, after home schooling, he attended Edinburgh’s Royal High School, but did not excel. Disliking the compulsory curriculum, he skived frequently and got poor grades.

After baling out at 15, Bell travelled to London to live with his unusually named grandfather, Alexander. He’d a more productive time there intellectually, helping him secure – aged 16 – a position as a "pupil-teacher" of elocution and music at Weston House Academy, Elgin.

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Later, Bell returned to Weston as an assistant master and, in his spare hours, continued experiments on sound, installing a telegraph wire from his room to that of a friend.

But, soon, he was back in London, where the family had moved, teaching at Susanna E. Hull's private school for the deaf. In 1868, having previously spent time at Embra Yoonie, Alexander completed his matriculation exams and was accepted for admission to University College London.

However, his brother’s death from tuberculosis persuaded the family to seek healthier climes, upping sticks in 1870 to Canada, where his father had once successfully convalesced. They bought a 10-acre farm in Ontario.

Here, Bell set up his own workshop – his “dreaming place” – and converted the local Mohawk language into Visible Speech symbols, earning him the title Honorary Chief and prompting him, in a moment of weakness, to participate in traditional dances. 

The Herald:

Bell's device

 

Hear and now
Less embarrassingly, he opened a School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech in Boston, attracting many deaf pupils. In 1872, he became professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at the Boston University School of Oratory, becoming so busy with teaching that he’d to continue his experiments at night in the boarding house where he was not at all regarded as weird by the other tenants. 

In 1873, he gave up his lucrative private work to concentrate on sound experiments, retaining only two students, one of whom he later married. The other’s wealthy parents offered Bell a place to stay in nearby Salem, complete with an “experiment” room.

In February 1876, he filed a patent for his acoustic telegraph. That same day, one Elisha Gray filed a caveat (statement of concept) for a similar invention using a water transmitter. Arguments raged thereafter as to who was first, but what would become one of the most valuable patents in history was awarded to Bell on 7 March 1876. Gray contested it vigorously, but his phoney war was to no avail.

On 3 August 1876, Bell made a telephone call via telegraph wires. Faint voices were heard replying. One week later, he made “the world's first long-distance call”: all of eight miles.

After attending one of Bell’s public demonstrations introducing the new invention, Sir William Thomson (later, Lord Kelvin), the renowned Scottish scientist, described the telephone as “the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph”.

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The Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877 and, by 1886, 150,000 people in the U.S. owned phones. The company faced no fewer than 587 court challenges to its patents. None was successful.

In 1882, Bell became a citizen of the United States, but Canada still called his heart and, in 1886, he began constructing another home – Beinn Breagh (Gaelic: Beautiful Mountain) – on 50 acres of land in Nova Scotia.

Foolish metal jacket
Still, he beavered away on inventions. Eighteen more patents were granted in his name and another 12 with collaborators. These included five for aerial vehicles and four for “hydro-airplanes”. Other projects were a metal jacket to assist breathing and a device to locate icebergs.

He was further interested in air conditioning, metal detecting, solar panels, composting toilets, and heredity, conducting breeding experiments with sheep, in the hope of producing one with multiple nipples. Something to talk about round the dinner table.

Alas, Alexander Graham Bell stopped talking on 2 August 1922, dying aged 75 from diabetes-related complications.

The Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, cabled his widow, saying: “It will ever be a source of pride to our country that the great invention, with which his name is immortally associated, is a part of its history.” 

Upon conclusion of Bell’s funeral, every phone in North America was silenced for a minute in his honour.