Cooke , Sir , William Fothergill , 1806-1879 , Knight , Electrical engineer

Sir William Fothergill Cooke was born in Ealing in 1806. He was educated at Durham and Edinburgh Unviersity and then served in the Indian Army 1826-1831. Resumed his studies at Paris and Heidelberg, where he saw Professor Moncke's demonstration of the electric telegraph. He returned to England and began experiments on its application to alarm systems and railway signalling in 1836. His electrical knowledge was, however, lacking and he had almost given up his ideas on the telegraph when he met Charles Wheatstone, who had the necessary scientific knowledge and skill. The two men entered into partnership and took out a joint patent for an alarm system in May 1837. Cooke persuaded the London and Birmingham Railway Company and the Great Western Railway company to sanction experiments along their lines and he and Wheatstone further developed their telegraph, Wheatstone providing the technical expertise and Cooke the business prowess and practical knowledge. The partnership was however, an uneasy one. The issue of priority of invention came to dominate their relationship and was taken to arbitration in 1841 before Sir Marc Isambard Brunel and Professor John Frederic Daniell, who decided that Cooke and Wheatstone were equally and jointly responsible for it. However, the dispute resurfaced in 1845 and in 1846 Cooke formed the Electric Telegraph Company which bought their joint patents. Cooke was knighted in 1868, and died at Farnham, Surrey on 25 June 1879.