Who Invented The Phone

Who invented the phone? Like many other inventions the answer to 'who invented the phone' is far from easy. Several people laid claims to the title of inventor of the telephone, including: Alexander Graham Bell; Antonio Meucci; Elisha Gray; and Johann Philipp Reis.

One contender for the title of inventor of the telephone was Johann Phillip Reis. Reis was born into a Jewish family in Germany in 1834 and was a self-educated scientist and inventor. Even in his teens he experimented with devices to transmit sound; one ramshackle construction utilised a beer can for the mouthpiece, a spare violin case for the resonator and finally sausage skin for the connector! Reis was both enterprising and inventive, obsessed with designing what he called an "artificial ear". As early as 1860 Reiss constructed the first prototype of a telephone covering 100 meters. The first sentence ever transmitted via his "artificial ear" was the phrase "The horse eats no cucumber salad" (it may have sounded better in its original German!). Sadly, Reis' discovery met with little enthusiasm from his contemporaries. Nobody at the time was interested in Reis' invention and the idea was forgotten, with Reis dying in obscurity in 1874. However, a 27-year-old was introduced to the "artificial ear" a year later. His name? Alexander Graham Bell.

Did Alexander Graham Bell invent the phone? Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1847 but moved to Ontario and later settled in Boston, and it was here where he began his career as an inventor. His interest in the education of deaf people led him to invent the microphone, closely followed by an electrical speech machine which later became known as a telephone. Bell spent the following years working with Reis' invention and creating an improved version of the prototype. It is suggested that it was Johann Phillip Reis' original idea that Bell patented in 1876. Nonetheless, Bell's reputation as inventor of the telephone quickly spread through America and Europe and his first telephone exchange was set up by 1878, in New Haven, Connecticut.

Or perhaps Elisha Gray invented the phone? Elisha Gray was Bell's greatest rival.  Gray was born in Barnsville, Ohio during 1835. He discovered by accident one day that he could control the sound from a self vibrating electromagnetic circuit. From this discovery Gray invented a basic single note oscillator. On 14^th February 1876 he filed an announcement with the U.S. Patent Office that he soon intended to patent this invention. Unfortunately for Gray, Bell had actually registered his patent for an apparatus that achieved the same results only two hours earlier that same day. The irony is that it was believed that Bell's patent never worked but Gray's apparatus would have!

Who invented the phone? It is rumored that to get his patent to work, Bell incorporated Gray's ideas which had been outlined in Gray's Notice of Invention. These were ideas that Bell had not mentioned or proposed in his own patent. Years of litigation ensued between Bell and Gray resulting in Bell finally being named as the inventor of the telephone.

Recent research has uncovered further controversy to the question 'who invented the phone' that credits a fourth gentleman - an Italian immigrant named Antonio Meucci - as being the 'true' inventor of the telephone.  Meucci was born in Florence in 1808 and travelled to seek his fortune in America in 1845. Meucci's experiments led him to discover that voice could be transmitted through wire - and for thirteen years he developed over thirty different models of telephones. Sadly, Meucci's poverty meant that he was never able to patent his creation, which he called the 'teletrophone'.

So who invented the phone? You decide!