Obituary

Mr. Edward Victor Baillard, who was a manufacturer of electrical machinery at 24 Frankfort Street, New York City, died on the evening of October 24, 1908, from a pleuritic attack. Mr. Baillard was born in New York City on March 14, 1866. He received a general education in private and public schools in New York. On leaving school in 1881 he took up the study of electricity and its applications, from periodicals and various text-books. He was elected an Associate of the Institute on December 3, 1889, and on January 16, 1895, was transferred to the grade of Member. He is believed to have been the first person to make a practical demonstration of the multiplex telegraph. The experiments were conducted in 1886 by himself and his associate, Mr. A. M. A. Beale, between 253 Broadway, New York City, and Philadelphia, with Mr. Baillard at the New York end and Mr. Beale at Philadelphia. In the course of the experiments eight messages were sent simultaneously over the same wire to eight separate offices. He was widely known in electrical circles as an expert mechanician, making a specialty of solving difficult mechanical problems in the construction of fine electrical machinery, and to his technical knowledge and mechanical skill is due the development to the practical stage, of a number of important electrical inventions.