David Hughes created the first mechanism for printing telegraph messages in words rather than dots and dashes.
Hughes emigrated to the USA from England, aged seven, where he became Professor of Music at St. Joseph's College in Kentucky in 1850. He was fascinated with the science behind creating sound; this broadened into a wider interest in communications, and in 1855 he created a machine that could print out a telegraph message.
It worked a lot like a 'golfball' typewriter, but was created years before the typewriter was even invented. His designs have in fact influenced the teleprinter, Telex system and computer keyboard. Because his printer made reading a telegraph message very easy, it was immediately successful, lasting in some countries until the 1930s.
Hughes returned to sound and in 1878 invented the carbon microphone. He refused to patent or earn money from his idea, which became an essential part of the telephone and for a while was also used in broadcasting.
