The electric type-printing telegraph of Royal Earl House (1814-1895) looked like the offspring of a record player and a piano. Several intricate devices sat on the telegraph's wooden base above a keyboard whose keys were labeled with the letter to which they corresponded. Despite its looks, the machine was not musical. It did, however, rely on the steady beat of its underlying clockwork-generated electricity to produce a message printed on a strip of paper.
House eventually shared his idea with Jacob Brett, a British electrical engineer, who built a working model. When a key on the machine's keyboard was pressed, an electric circuit would be temporarily broken at one of twenty-eight corresponding pins on an underlying rotating cylinder. The breaking of the circuit would stop the cylinder's motion, consequently stopping a synchronized electromagnet controlling the type-wheel. With the type-wheel halted on the proper letter, the connected apparatus then pressed a strip of paper to the type-wheel, depositing graphite ink onto the paper.
The European and American Electric Type-printing Telegraph Company and the Submarine Telegraph Company (S.T.C.) began using the device to send messages between France and England. The S.T.C. was particularly confident, proclaiming in 1850 that the device could send 100 messages, of fifteen words each, in 100 minutes.
House's electric type-printing telegraph was faster than the old needle telegrapher and was intricate and expensive by comparison. Not only was it a stylish commodity, but the convenience of its printed messages and speed earned its place as the new telegraphing standard.
