The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Hughes, David Edward

Born May 16, 1831, in London; died there Jan. 22, 1900. Physicist; inventor in the field of electrical engineering. Fellow of the Royal Society of London (1880).

Hughes taught at St. Joseph’s College in Bardstown, Ky., from 1850 to 1854. He was named a professor of music there in 1850 and a professor of physics in 1851. In 1855 he patented a printing telegraph that was first used commercially in 1856 in the USA. It began finding application in many countries of Europe, including Russia, in 1862. In 1878, independently of others, Hughes invented the carbon microphone. He designed an induction balance and a sound ranger in 1879. In the same year, Hughes made experimental observations of electromagnetic waves, but he was unable to explain the phenomenon involved.

REFERENCE

Fleming, J. A. Fifty Years of Electricity. London-New York, 1921.

References in periodicals archive

Part of the Denbigh based museum Wireless in Wales' remit is to show the key role in the invention and development of radio by Denbighshire's David Edward Hughes whose work predated that of Marconi - often erroneously thought of as the inventor of radio.

Wales's key role in wireless invention; LETTERS

DAVID Edward Hughes might be from Bala, but it is in Denbigh that his pioneering role in radio is celebrated.

Museum champions Wales' role in wireless evolution

"Before We Went Wireless: David Edward Hughes FRS, His Life, Inventions, and Discoveries, 1829-1900" looks at the man who helped make telegraphs wireless, offering the first step into the medium before radio and television pushed it further and it became what it is today.

The Biography Shelf

Before we went wireless; David Edward Hughes FRS; his life, inventions and discoveries (1829-1900)

One particular Victorian scientist, David Edward Hughes, improved upon Samuel Morse's famous telegraph instrument, and worked as an early inventor of wireless and metal detection technologies.

Before We Went Wireless

Another eccentric Hughes was David Edward Hughes born in 1831.

Hughes takes strength from heart and mind; Merseyside's fourth most popular name Origins

And of our home-grown talents we can include the likes of aeronautic pioneer Bill Frost, who patented the aeroplane in 1894, and David Edward Hughes, of Corwen, Denbighshire, whom history records as the first man to transmit and receive radio waves.

The scientist with the motto 'take nobody's word for it' whose work makes Wales great

David Edward Hughes became the first person to transmit and receive radio waves.

Firm rings the changes with cantastic awards

@GarethFfowc: Public lecture by Iwan Rhys Morus on David Edward Hughes, inventor of the microphone, Friday at 5.15pm, Hen Goleg, College Road, Bangor.

AND MORE... tweets OF THE DAY

No, not Italy's Guglielmo Marconi or Germany's Heinrich Hertz - but David Edward Hughes from Bala.

We want Wales and the world to know his name; MEET THE REAL INVENTOR OF THE RADIO... AND HE'S FROM BALA Move over Marconi... David Edward Hughes is man we should be thanking for microphone and the teleprinter

From North Wales, David Edward Hughes of Bala was the first person ever to transmit radio waves and Martha Hughes Cannon, a native of Llanrwst, was a pioneer of children's medicine.

Science for all, please

The previously mentioned David Edward Hughes invented the printing telegraph system (teleprinter) in 1856-59, and the carbon microphone vital to telephony and broadcasting in 1877.

T GREAT OUR INVENTIONS INVENTIONS; New book challenges some accepted facts