Episode 1 of 4
Founding of the Company
- When
- 1846
- Where
- United Kingdom
William Fothergill Cooke and John Ricardo founded the Electric Telegraph Company in 1846, creating the world's first public telegraph company.
The company was established in 1846 by Cooke and Ricardo. It utilized the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, developed earlier. The company paid £120,000 for earlier patents, with Wheatstone retaining a mileage royalty. This marked the transition from experimental telegraphy to a commercial public service.
Sources
- Electric Telegraph Company Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-24
- William Fothergill Cooke Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-29
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.