Obituary

Sir William Henry Preece, K. C. B., F. R. S., Hon. Mem. A. I. E. E., former Engineer-in-Chief and Electrician of the British Post Office, one of the highest authorities on telegraphy and telephony, and a pioneer in wireless telegraphy, died at Carnarvon, North Wales, on November 6, 1913. Sir William Henry Preece was born February 15, 1834, near Carnarvon, and was educated at Kings College, London, also studying electricity, at the Royal Institution, under Faraday. In 1852 began his connection with telegraph work, when he entered the office of the late Edwin Clark, then chief engineer of the Electric Telegraph Company. From 1854 to 1856 he acted as assistant to J. Latimer Clark, and in the latter year was appointed superintendent of the southern district. In 1860 he was also appointed by the London and Southwestern Railroad to be superintendent of its electrical system, and in this work did much to perfect railway signaling. In 1870, the government took under its control the telegraph service of the country, and in that year Sir William, then Mr., Preece entered the Post Office service as division engineer for the South of England. Early in his career he had taken out patents for a duplex system of telegraphy. In 1877 he made a visit to the United States with Sir Henry Fischer, which resulted in the introduction into England both of “reading by sound,” and of the quadruplex system of telegraphy. In a paper on “Recent Progress in Telegraphy” in the British Association report of 1882, Mr. Preece described an experiment he had just made of telegraphing across the Solent, from Southampton to Newport on the Isle of Wight, without connecting wires, the experiment being prompted by a breakdown of the Solent cable. He frankly acknowledged at that time his indebtedness to the ideas of Professor Trowbridge.