People Alexander Bain (1810-77)

Often dubbed the ‘father of electrical horology’, Alexander Bain came from humble beginnings. Born in a small croft to a large family in the highlands of Scotland in 1810, he was initially apprenticed to a clockmaker, but became fascinated with electricity after attending a public lecture in nearby Thurso at the age of twenty. He patented his first electric clock in 1845, powering it through a combination of zinc and carbon electrodes buried in moist earth. During the same period, he also invented a ‘printing telegraph’ – a forerunner of the fax machine – and an electric telegraph. He would later use a telegraph line to send time signals from a controlling electric clock in Edinburgh down the railway line to a sympathetic pendulum in Glasgow, 46 miles away.