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David Edward Hughes (b. May 16, 1831, London d. Jan. 22, 1900, London), his family emigrated to the United States when he was seven years old. In 1850 he became professor of music at St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Ky.

Five years later (1855) he took out a U.S. patent for a type-printing telegraph instrument; its success was immediate, and in 1857 Hughes took it to Europe, where it came into widespread use and in some places continued in use until the 1930s.

In 1878, Anglo-American Hughes invented the carbon microphone, important to the development of telephony and the forerunner of the various carbon microphones now in use.

Source: Britannica Online

1855: Professor David E. Hughes (1831-1900), a London-born scientist working in America, invents the first perfected mechanism for printing telegraphs, using a keyboard in which each key caused the corresponding letter to be printed at a distant receiver. It worked a bit like a 'golfball' typewriter and was produced before the typewriter was even invented. The modern teleprinter, telex system and computer keboards are all direct descendants of this invention.

1877: British-born US inventor David E. Hughes (1831-1900) invents the loose-contact carbon microphone, vital to telephony and later to broadcasting and sound recording. Hughes refuses to patent his discoveries, revealing his secrets first to the Royal Society in London on 8th May 1878, and to the general public on 9th June.

Source: http://www.cequel.co.uk/acclarke/shc.html

1879: David E. Hughes discovered that when a stick of wood covered with powdered copper was placed in an electrical circuit, the copper would adhere when a spark was made.

Source: B. Eric Rhoads

David Edward Hughes was born in London on May 16, 1831 and died in London on January 22, 1900. He was [appointed] Professor of Music at the college of Bardstown Kentucky in 1850 [which] led him to study sound which led to science and transmission as well as amplification of sound. In 1855 [he patented] a type printing telegraph instrument that went into extensive use in America and Europe.

Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1827 was the first to use the word Microphone. Hughes in 1878 revived the term in connection with his discovery that a loose contact in a circuit containing and battery and a telephone receiver would give rise to sounds in the receiver corresponding to the vibrations impinged upon the diaphragm of the mouthpiece or transmitter.

Source: Loren Haroldson, Ellendale, MN, 56026, USA

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