IMPROVED APPARATUS AND MEANS FOR ENABLING PERSONS CONVEYED IN CARRIAGES TO COM- MUNICATE WITH THE DRIVERS OR CONDUCTORS THREEOF
Year: 1855

page_text: application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Theo Aston at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 6th February 1855.
I, THEO ASTON, of Compton Street, Regent's Square, in the County of
Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVED
APPARATUS AND MEANS FOR ENABLING PERSONS CONVEYED IN CARRIAGES TO COM-
MUNICATE WITH THE DRIVERS OR CONDUCTORS THREEOF" to be as follows:-
My Invention consists in the application to common road or street carriages
or vehicles of improved means of communication by the use of certain apparatus
(as herein-after described), which I call a "carriage telegraph." I fix on the
outside of the carriage or vehicle, in some position easily visible and accessible
to the driver or conductor, a box, herein-after called "a signal box," made of
wood, metal, or other suitable substance, and of convenient size and shape.
The signal box is provided with apparatus, so contrived and connected with
other apparatus fixed inside the carriage or vehicle, that a person inside may
he enabled at his pleasure to cause the signal box outside to exhibit certain
signals, written, printed, painted, or inscribed in any convenient manner, and
at the same time cause a hammer to strike a call bell fixed in the box, and so
direct the attention of the conductor or driver to the particular signal made.
The signals may consist of short sentences, expressive of the ordinary directions
commonly given to the driver or conductor of a carriage, such as "turn to the
right," "to the left," "stop," "go on," &c. They may be printed or otherwise

page_text: inscribed on a disc, made of cardboard, wood, metal, or any suitable substance,
mounted on an axis in the signal box, in whose top or side there is an aperture,
allowing only a portion or sector of the disc, that on which any one signal is
inscribed, to be visible at the same time; or again, they may be inscribed on
small arms or panels, or bars attached to the top or sides of the signal box, in
such a manner that the parts inscribed are invisible when not in operation, but
when set in motion by a person inside the carriage, the different signals are
exhibited at his pleasure by the signal box. When the signals are inscribed
on a disc revolving in the signal box, another disc, on which corresponding
signals are inscribed, is fixed inside the carriage, and there is attached thereto
a pointer, connected in such a manner with the axis of the revolving disc, that
when a person inside turns the pointer to any particular signal inscribed on
the disc inside, the corresponding signal is exhibited to the driver or conductor
through the aperture in the signal box, and his attention called thereto by the
striking of the call bell, whose hammer is actuated together with the pointer.
When the signals are inscribed severally on arms, panels, or bars attached to
the top or sides of the signal box, they may be set in motion by levers and
cranks, or other suitable means, being connected with the hammer of the call
bell, and worked by cords, wires, or rods placed within reach of a person
inside, and labelled with signals corresponding to those inscribed, as aforesaid,
so that by pulling a particular label the call bell is struck, and the correspond-
ing signal exhibited by the signal box.