Claim: Samuel Alfred Varley was among the first to make a self-excited dynamo, a type of direct current electric generator in which field winding and armature winding are connected in parallel, in 1866 along other contenders who were Charles Wheatstone and Werner von Siemens.
Evidence: Samuel Alfred Varley (1832–1921) was an English electrical engineer. In 1866, he was among the first to make a self-excited dynamo. Self-excited direct current dynamos commonly have a combination of series and parallel (shunt) field windings, which are directly supplied power by the rotor through the commutator in a regenerative manner. A shunt generator is a type of direct current electric generator in which field winding and armature winding are connected in parallel, and in which the armature supplies both the load current and the field current. Other contenders were Charles Wheatstone and Werner von Siemens.