Lot 13: Wheatstone (Charles)

Autograph agreement by F.O Ward, signed by both Wheatstone and Ward, entitled"Memorandum relating to the agreement between Charles Wheatstone & F.O. Ward.The Royalty payable to Mr Wheatstone to be £3 per mile in all countries which, by arrangement shall become exclusively F.O. Ward's half that amount or 30% per mile in countries where we are liable to the competiton of other parties - the Egyptian Telegraph to paid £3 per mile - as it is already obtained. It is clearly understood that Mr Wheatstone has given up to Mr F.O. Ward by his agreement with him - further confirmed and explained by this memorandum - all his interest - and the advantage of his aid and influence to obtain & write patents for Electric Telegraphs & to establish Electric Telegraphs in all parts of the world not, at this date, surrendered by him to Mr Cooke. Dated January 21 1846" , 3 pages, docketed on the verso "C. Wheatstone agreement. Jan 21st 46", 8vo, 21 January, 1846

Little is known about F.O. Ward, a former student of King's College, except that he states that Professor Wheatstone explained to him his proposed application of the electric telegraph for the purpose "of showing the time of a distant clock simultaneously in all rooms of a house, or in all the houses of a town connected together by wires", in 1840, and being shown by Wheatstone drawings of an apparatus for making and breaking a circuit by alternate motion of the pendulum of a clock.