Before We Went Wireless

"We are indebted to the authors for, finally, an authoritative biography of this significant British-American musician-turned-inventor. Family papers (including a personal notebook) add valuable insights into his thinking processes and the role that music played in his work, as do separate detailed descriptions of his innovative printing telegraph, microphone and relay, among other devices.... This work is a valuable addition to the literature on nineteenth-century invention."

- Bernard Finn, Curator Emeritus of the Electrical Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

This biography of David Edward Hughes brings to light developments in three key areas of 19th century technology -telegraphy, telephony, and wireless communication. Hughes, a Welsh child musical prodigy with a passion for experimentation and engineering, invented a telegraph system that printed letters and demonstrated a practical working microphone while coining the term. He also experimentally produced wireless communication between a transmitter and receiver in 1880, though he misinterpreted this phenomenon and did not pursue his ideas. The book spans the whole of Hughes's life. Where appropriate, Ivor Hughes (electrical engineer) and Evans (historian) discuss contextual historical events; for example, Hughes was caught in Prussia selling his telegraphy system at the outset o the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The narrative is clear and technically detailed. The authors rely on the use of primary sources, including family-owned private papers and notebooks, as well as Hughes's papers at the National Library of Wales. Extensive endnotes provide further insights, and appendixes provide technical explanations of the Hughes telegraph, its improvements, ane the Hughes electromagnet. This book would be a welcome addition to history of technology and engineering collections. Summing Up: Recommended. Academic, general, and professional readership, all levels. S. A. Curtis, University of Missouri, Kansas City (Choice Magazine)

"Before We Went Wireless is the stylish new biography of inventor David Edward Hughes, and it chuffs along like a great Victorian locomotive.Hughes not only invented the 19^th century's most commercially successful telegraph, in a stunning revelation authors Hughes and Evans detail beyond a doubt his discovery of wireless in 1880 nearly two decades before Marconi's work arrives on the scene! How this happens and just why Hughes is moved to suppress his own invention makes for one of the great reads of technological history." - Morgan Wesson, Writer, Journalist and Filmmaker whose credits include Alexander Graham Bell and Empire of the Air with Ken Burns.