Item ST 7106 Telegraph Register - Siemens & Halske, Embossing, Germany, post 1847

Summary

Object is an embossing register for receiving and recording telegraph signals.

In operation, the intermittent current generated by the received signals causes the embossing stylus to be intermittently pressed on to a moving paper tape. The stylus embosses a series of long and short marks on the tape, with the length of each mark depending on whether the duration of the current flow is long (producing a dash) or short (producing a dot.) The mechanism which moves the tape is driven by a falling weight attached to a chain passing over a sprocket on the main drive shaft.

The object carries a small plate marked: 'Siemens & Halske, / Berlin'. Siemens & Halske in Germany was set up in 1847. Thus it seems likely that this object was manufactured in Berlin in or after 1847.

The object is one of a group of about twenty donated to the Museum in 1915 by the executors of a collector who died in 1898.