1830s – 1848Becher, a political economist.• (^) Th ough some 1500 patents had by 1900 been
registered in the US for composing machines
those invented by Robert Hattersley and Charles
Kastenbein dominated. With each, the chief
problem was the need to justify the lines by hand,
a problem resolved by Linotype and Monotype
machines, and the punch-cutting machine of
Linn Boyd Benton of Milwaukee in 1885.
• (^) A Saxon weaver, Friedrich Gottleb Keller,
produces paper from wood pulp, another inno-
vation suggested much earlier but not developed
or taken up.
• (^) Th e fi rst public telegraph service is introduced
following the completion of the Great Western
Railway telegraph line from Paddington to
Slough. William Cooke who had patented the
system transferred the licence, for an annual fee,
to Th omas Home and the fi rst paid telegrams
were sent by Cooke’s double-needle electro-
magnetic telegraph along a 20-mile wire. Even-
tually the Electric Telegraph Company took up
the licence and pioneered nationwide telegraphy.
By 1847 two systems, north and south, were in
operation, linking major towns and cities. Unifi -
cation of the regions took place in November.
• (^) Foundation of the News of the World, the Econ-
omist and, in Newcastle, the Miners’ Journal.
1844 Transmission of the first press telegram,
from a Congress reporter in Washington DC
to the editor of the Baltimore Patriot, by Morse
telegraph. In the UK the fi rst press telegraph was
sent in the same year, from Windsor Castle to
Th e Times via the Slough-Paddington telegraph,
announcing the birth of Prince Alfred to Queen
Victoria.
• (^) William Fox-Talbot’s Th e Pencil of Nature is the
fi rst book in the UK to be published with photo-
graphs. Th is was issued by Longman in six parts.
• (^) Society of Women Journalists founded in
London.
1846 London: Daily News founded, with Charles
Dickens (briefl y) as editor.
1847–8 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels produce
Th e Communist Manifesto. Having settled in the
UK Marx produced his monumental work, Das
Kapital (Capital) in 1859.
• (^) Paris: the photographic journal Le Daguer-
rotype published.
1848 In Havana, Cuba, Italian Antonio Meucci
creates instrument with which he communicates
between apartment fl oors with his invalid wife.
However, it is 1860 before there is a public
demonstration of the telephone, by Johann
Philipp Reis of Germany, using a violin-case for
a resonator, a hollowed-out beer-barrel bung
Augustus Applegarth and Edward Cowper for
Th e Times, speeds the delivery of print, allow-
ing 4,000 sheets per hour. Th e same inventors
follow this up in 1848 with the rotary press,
which printed 8,000 sheets per hour.
1830s UK: the ‘War of the Unstamped’ waged by
the radical, unstamped press against the Taxes
on Knowledge.
1831–5 Publication of Henry Hetherington’s Poor
Man’s Guardian, one of the outstanding radical
papers of the nineteenth century.
1832 W.E. Weber and K.F. Gauss construct the
needle telegraph in Grottingen.
• (^) Th e Penny Magazine of London becomes the
fi rst mass-circulation paper selling over 100,000
copies.
1833 Advertising Duty reduced, followed in 1836
with the reduction of Stamp Duty and Excise
Duty on paper. It was not until 1853 that Adver-
tising Duty was abolished. 1855 saw the abolition
of Stamp Duty and 1861 Paper Duties.
• (^) US: New York Sun, concentrating on stories
of sex and violence, published by Benjamin
Day. Th is was followed in 1835 by the New York
Herald, published by John Gordon Bennett, with
specifi c pages dedicated to sport and fi nance.
1835 Henry Fox-Talbot, British pioneer in the
development of photography, publishes a
description in the February edition of the Liter-
ary Gazette of the positive–negative process,
which would enable the reproduction of photo-
graphs in any number.
• (^) Fox-Talbot’s work coincided with that of the
Frenchman Louis Daguerre, who was the fi rst
to commercially exploit photography. The
Daguerrotype used only the one-off positive, but
it advanced exposure time from eight hours to
only 15 to 30 minutes. Th e French government
acquired the rights from Daguerre and Isidor
Nièpce, heir of Nicéphore Nièpce (died 1833)
who had gone into business with Daguerre. Th us
the process became public property for all to
use. Daguerre’s own cameras were on sale before
the end of the year.
1836 US: Samuel Morse builds his fi rst telegraph.
1838 Th e Times of India founded.
• (^) Publication of the radical Northern Star (until
1852).
1839 In Paris, Alphonse Giroux manufactures for
sale the fi rst Daguerrotype camera.
1842 Illustrated London News is founded.
• (^) Samuel Morse lays fi rst submarine telegraph
cable, New York Harbour.
1843 Giuseppe Mazzini obtains patent for a
composing machine, though the idea had
originated as early as 1682 with Johann Joachim