A NEW MODE OF COM- MUNICATING INTELLIGENCE FROM ONE APARTMENT OF A HOUSE TO ANOTHER, BY MEANS OF MACHINERY OR APPARATUS, WHICH I DENOMINATED A DOMESTIC TELE- GRAPH
Year: 1810

page_text: ABD
JOHNSON, of the County of Surry, Gentleman, send greeting.
JUSETI
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent, under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Seventeenth day of
September, in the fiftieth year of Ilis reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Joseph Johnson, my exors, aduiors, and assigns, His especial licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Joseph Johnson, my exors,
adiors, and assigns, should and lawfully might, during the term of years
therein mentioned, make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and
the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "A NEW MODE OF COM-
MUNICATING INTELLIGENCE FROM ONE APARTMENT OF A HOUSE TO ANOTHER, BY
MEANS OF MACHINERY OR APPARATUS, WHICH I DENOMINATED A DOMESTIC TELE-
GRAPH;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso that if I,
the said Joseph Johnson, shall not particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of iny said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to
be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent, that
then the said Letters Patent and all liberties and advantages whatsoever
thereby granted, shall utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and by
the same, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that, in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Joseph Johnson, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly
<described and ascertained as follows, that is to say:-
In the Drawings hereunto annexed the numbers 7, 7, denote a pulley or
wheel, of sufficient size to render the intended work easy, and to acquire a
considerable length of line or chain needful to be drawn off in making one
compleat turn or revolution thereof. No. 9 denotes a tassel or other appen-
dage to a line or, pull, which is continued round the pulley Number 7, and
carries an index or hand No. 8, which is raised or depressed by the pull, and
may, by that means, be placed opposite any one of the subjects or things
written or printed in a table or list fixed or placed opposite the range of the
said index or hand. No. 6 denotes a smaller pulley or wheel, upon which
also is wound a chain or string leading to the ring A, and employed to com-
municate motion to machinery placed at any required distance from the apart-
ment or place in which the apparatus 6, 7, 8, and 9, are fixed or disposed.
The letter A denotes a ring or other suitable piece for connecting the last-
mentioned chain (by means of another chain or communicating rods Number 27,
led or conveyed by pulleys, cranks, or other usual contrivances, with the
principal machinery; the rings B, B, B, B, B, B, denote chains, distinctly and
separately, proceeding from other apartments, or places fitted up each with a
pull and pulleys, and a table or list similar to Number 6, 7, 8, and 9, in order
and to the end and purpose that the company, in such other apartments, may
also have the means of setting their respective indexes of communication from
time to time, and conveying their orders or demands respectively as is herein-
after more fully shewn...
:
Number 1 is a ratchet wheel, fixed upon an arbor or axis, and having a
pulley, Number 2, attached thereto, upon which is wound the chain or string
communicating from the ring A, and upon the said arbor or axis is set an
hand F, to move along the divisions of a dial plate, denoted by the circles G, G, G,
having a list of subjects or things thereon correspondent with the table, on list
placed in the apartments or places aforesaid.
No. 3 is a bolt or click-piece, which confines the ratchet wheel to its situa-
tion when duly placed, and the effect of the pull at Number 9, by which the
index 8 is set to any article or thing, is that the ratchet wheel, Number 1, is
pulled round by the communication, and the sizes of the respective parts are
such that the revolutions of Number 1 and Number 7 are performed in the
same time, and the hand F will point upon the dial plate G, G, G, to the same
article to which the index, Number 8, shall have been set.

page_text: Number 10 is a wheel or pulley, communicating by a chain, Number. 28,
with a bell, Number 29; the said bell is held with its spring in a state of
tension by the pulley, Number 10, secured by its bolt or click-piece, Number 11,
but when the pull is made upon Number 9, the catch; Number 26, upon the
rising bar or rod of communication, Number 27, discharges the bolt, Number 11,
and allows the bell to draw round the pulley 10, and to ring. There are
counterweights or springs, of moderate force, applied to the ratchet wheel,
Number 1, and to Number 10, either by communication or otherwise, and
there is also a chain or cord, not shewn for the sake of avoiding confusion in
the Drawing, by which the servant who, upon the sound of the bell, examines
the dial for the order, is enabled to pull upon A, which raised the bolt Number
3, and upon Number 10 and Number 2 at the same time, and by that means
to replace the machinery in its former situation, in all respects ready for use
as before.
Number 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, are leading pulleys, for conveying chains or
strings from the rings or picces B, B, B, B, B, B, to certain weights, Number
18, 18, 18, 22, 22, 22, which bear upon the tails of certain levers respectively,
as shewn at 1, and keep the other ends of the said lever up. But when the
action of pulling is made from any apartment or place as aforesaid, the com-
munication from that individual apartment to its corresponding weight will be
made and will raise that weight without disturbing any of the other weights,
and the lever belonging to that weight will be thereby suffered to fall into the
position 62, with its longer end much nearer to the dial plate. than before,
and will, by that means, oppose an obstacle to the revolution of a numbered
plate lying behind and parallel to and concentric with the dial plate, which,
being provided with a counterweight and being let go at the time of the pull,
and having a prominent stud at the back surface thereof, will be stopt by the
said stud meeting the said lever at the point of revolution at such time as a
number denoting the apartment or place whence the order may have been
given, shall be opposite to and visible through an hole in the dial plate. The
manner of constructing, fixing, connecting, and working the said plate will
be readily understood without further instruction by any competent mechanic.
G and H shew a lever and rack and a toothed wheel, lightly fitted, to move on
the principal arbor by which the said plate may be worked, or otherwise an
hand may be used instead thereof, and the positions of the said plate or hand
may be made to indicate either in one and the same circle or at different dis-
tances from the centre, as may be thought most convenient or agreeable, and,
moreover, the separate pulls from B might be made to indicate the place or
apartment by various other very obvious appendages at 22 or 18 respectively.

page_text: And lastly, I do declare that my said Invention of communicating intelligence,
as to the nature and kind of the articles wanted, and the place to which the
same are required to be carried, is capable of being affected by the means
aforesaid with great variations of the parts thereof; and of the respective
situations and action of the same, for it is well known to all mechanical.
operators that pullies, wheels, cranks, levers, sliders, racks, and other organs
may be substituted in the place of each other, and that tooth & pinion may
be substituted for pulley and chain weights instead of springs, chains, rods,
straps, cords, indifferently, according to circumstances or choice, with many
other similar particulars, which it is needless to enumerate, because the nature,
eflect, and performance of my said Invention may be sufficiently understood
from what hath been herein-before described and set forth.
In witness whereof I, the said Joseph Johnson, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Seventeenth day of November, in the year of our
And lastly, I do declare that my said Invention of communicating intelligence,
as to the nature and kind of the articles wanted, and the place to which the
same are required to be carried, is capable of being affected by the means
aforesaid with great variations of the parts thereof; and of the respective
situations and action of the same, for it is well known to all mechanical.
operators that pullies, wheels, cranks, levers, sliders, racks, and other organs
may be substituted in the place of each other, and that tooth & pinion may
be substituted for pulley and chain weights instead of springs, chains, rods,
straps, cords, indifferently, according to circumstances or choice, with many
other similar particulars, which it is needless to enumerate, because the nature,
effect, and performance of my said Invention may be sufficiently understood
from what hath been herein-before described and set forth.
In witness whereof I, the said Joseph Johnson, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Seventeenth day of November, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and ten.
JOS JOHNSON. (L.S.)
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Seventeenth day of November,
in the year of our Lord 1810, the aforesaid Joseph Johnson came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Seventeenth day of November,
in the year of our Lord 1810, the aforesaid Joseph Johnson came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Tarolled the Seventeenth day of November, in the year of our Lord 1810.