William F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patent…

William F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patent the electrical telegraph in May 1837, having formed a partnership for this purpose.

Cooke, having become fascinated by electrical telegraph in 1836, had abandoned his primary subject of anatomy and built a small electrical telegraph within three weeks.

Wheatstone, a physicist and inventor, has also been experimenting with telegraphy and (most importantly) understands that a single large battery will not carry a telegraphic signal over long distances, and that numerous small batteries are far more successful and efficient in this task (Wheatstone has been building on the primary research of Joseph Henry, an American physicist).