IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH ELECTRIC BELLS, SPECIALLY DESIGNED FOR SIGNALLING FROM THE ROOMS OF PASSENGER SHIPS, AND HOTELS, AND FOR OTHER LIKE PURPOSES
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James White at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 19th November 1879.
JAMES WHITE, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, Optician.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH ELECTRIC BELLS, SPECIALLY DESIGNED
FOR SIGNALLING FROM THE ROOMS OF PASSENGER SHIPS, AND HOTELS, AND FOR
OTHER LIKE PURPOSES."
This Invention relates to a new or improved construction or arrangement of the
parts of electric bell or signalling apparatus to be used on board ship or in hotels
(or for the rooms of large mansions, or business offices, or factories), for commu-
nication between the passenger's saloons or cabins, or the visitor's rooms and the
apartment of the steward, waiter, or other attendant, to convey signals to summon
such attendants when desired by the passengers or visitors, which apparatus is
made more simple and efficient in its action, much less expensive in its first cost
and fitting, and less liable to get out of working order than the arrangements of
electric bells heretofore in use.
"
And the nature and novelty of the Invention consists as follows:-The signalling
apparatus comprises an improved form of contact maker fitted at or near the door-
way of each cabin or room, and which when acted on or pressed by a passenger or
visitor completes the electric circuit through it between the usual electro-positive
and negative wires connecting an electric battery and the ordinary bell coil, and
causes a bell, gong, or other signal in the steward's or waiter's " room to ring or
sound and summon that attendant. One arrangement of this improved contact maker
consists of a metallic spring knob passing out through the front of a wooden case
into the interior of the room, and passed out by the spring in its normal position,
to be pressed in when desired by the occupant of the room to ring the bell by a
make and break contact switch attached to it, and through contact with a terminal
plate connected to the main wire completing the electric circuit through the switch
and local battery, or it might be a magnet, all so far much as in other electric bells;
the bell being rung to call the attendant as long as the knob is pressed in. The
essential improvement in the construction of the contact making apparatus consists
in making the knob with an extension reaching back through the wooden case, so that
when pushed in it presses back or frees an arrangement of lateral gripping spring
or springs at the inner end of the knob to release a semaphore or other visible vane
or signal, and allow it to fall or drop out at right angles to its former position,
either by its own weight alone, or by the action of a spring pressing against its
rn
071

page_text: inner edge; or this signal vane might be pushed straight out by a spring, which may
be released by pressing in the knob; in either case this semaphore or visible signal
indicates to the attendant the particular room from which the signal proceeded, and
when answering the summons this attendant replaces the semaphore all ready for
future action.
Each cabin, state room, or saloon of a ship, or each room of an hotel or other
building is provided with a contact maker and signal of this improved form fitted at
or near the door way or in a passage leading from a number of rooms, and each
contact maker is connected by short wires only to the main line of wires leading
to and from the sounding bell, instead of, and being an improvement on the
expensive system hitherto in use of, connecting each room and contact maker with
a separate wire leading to a separate magnet with index or number and lever or
commutator for each room in the attendant's pantry to show him from which room
the signal proceeded. The signals from any set of rooms or cabins are conveyed to
a single bell in the steward's or waiter's pantry, and the attendant on hearing the
signal looks down the passage leading to the separate rooms (where the signalling
contact makers are placed), and seeing which semaphore has fallen immediately
knows from which room the call or signal proceeded, and when answering the
summons replaces the semaphore as before stated.
When more than one flat of a building or series of cabins is fitted with the
improved apparatus a separate line of wires is provided, and a separate alarm or
signalling bell may be fitted in the attendant's room for each flat or floor or set of
rooms, and the bell for each set would be made of a different tone to emit a
distinctive sound, so that the attendant may readily know to which flat to proceed
to find the fallen semaphore, and there ascertain from which room the signal came.
The details of the contact making apparatus may be altered in construction to
admit of the fall of the semaphore on making contact, or to cause other signals than
that described to be shown, such as coloured light signals displayed by the removal
of a vane in front of them, in an equivalent manner to that described for actuating
the semaphore before mentioned, for indicating the apartment from which a call
proceeds, still in accordance with the essential features of the Invention.
Although the mechanical motion of the knob and its metal spindle has been
described for moving or allowing the semaphore to be moved by a spring, it will be
understood that the semaphore might be so actuated by an electro magnet put in
circuit through the wires by the pushing in of the knob of the contact maker.