AN IMPROVED RECORDING TELEGRAPH
Year: 1871

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Alfred Barton at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 15th February
1871.
I, ALFRED BARTON, of Howland Street, Fitzroy Square, in the County
of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"AN IMPROVED RECORDING TELEGRAPH," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to improvements in the construction and
manner of operating telegraphs, adapted more particularly for private
houses, offices, warehouses, hotels, an other public buildings, but are
also well adapted for the transmission of short messages on railways
between stations.
The following is an example of the improvements above referred to,
and the mode of operating therewith:-Take a private dwelling house,
for example, the mode commonly adopted by the inmates when they
require anything brought to them is to call a servant by ringing a bell,
and inform him or her what they want, and this necessarily involves two
journeys, namely, one journey to ascertain what is wanted and another
journey to take it.

page_text: Now the object and intention of this Invention is to make one journey
serve both the above-named purposes by communicating to the servant
either from the drawing room, dining room, bedroom, or other room
when the bell is rung what is required without the servant having to
leave the kitchen for that purpose, as heretofore commonly practised.
To effect this I propose to fix a dial in each room, and a corresponding
dial in the kitchen of the house, the bell of each room corresponding
with its respective dial. Each dial has numeral letters or words
printed or written thereon. For example, suppose the room to be the
dining room, then the articles or commands usually required may either
be written thereon, or numerals or letters may be employed. In this
latter case there must be an indication tablet hung on the wall of the
kitchen, on which is written or printed the article wanted or command
required to be obeyed; for instance, suppose the dial to be divided into
eight compartments, in each of which a numeral is printed, namely,
number one in one division, number two in another, and so on, and that
the said numerals one. to seven are written on the aforesaid tablet and
opposite to each, the command, say, opposite number one the word
coals; number two, dinner; three, supper; and so on, by mounting a
revolving pulley on the centre of each dial with an index or pointer
fixed thereon, and connecting the dial in the dining room with that in
the kitchen by an endless cord, wire, or other suitable contrivance,
and by means of a handle fixed in the front of each pulley the pointer
may be moved opposite to any numeral, letter, or word on the fixed
dials, so that suppose the index to be moved to number one on the dial
in the dining room the index in the kitchen will be similarly moved,
and indicate to the servant that coals are required, and in this manner
and by these means the commands of the person in the dining or other
room may be recorded on the dial in the kitchen, the attention of the
servant being called by ringing the dining room bell. The cords or
wires may be carried along the wall of the room under the floor thereof
into the kitchen, or otherwise, taking care where bends or curves are
required to be made to use curved short pipes at such parts to enable
the endless cord or wire to move freely at such parts. For offices and
other houses of business I propose as being more desirable to employ
one or more swivel clips fixed to the before-mentioned endless cord or
wire, to hold a piece of paper or other material, on which is to be written
any message or inquiry, which will be conveyed from the principal's
room to the clerk's office by turning round the pulley, as before stated,

page_text: and in like manner a reply can be silently conveyed to the principal
without the clerk having to leave his office for that purpose, unless the
request cannot be conveyed otherwise than by hand.
I would here remark that I do not intend to limit this Invention to
the use of separate dials in the kitchen for each separate room in the
house, but if desirable use one dial for all the rooms, the said dial being
suitably fitted with loose tablets, which may be changed as required to
suit requirements, and this applies to the domestic telegraph previously
described.