Frederick Bakewell Biography – Image Telegraph Inventor

Last Update: August 9th, 2021

Frederick Bakewell (29 Sept 1800 – 26 Sept 1869) was a physicist credited with improving the facsimile machine invented by Alexander Bain in 1842.

Table of Contents

• Life
• Image Telegraph
• Further Reading
• More Resources on the History of Fax

Life

Bakewell was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, and later lived in Hampstead, Middlesex until the time of his death.

Facsimile Improvement – Image Telegraph

Bakewell’s most known invention was the “image telegraph” – in many ways very similar in function to today’s fax machine.

It was an improvement on Alexander Bain’s system, replacing the pendulums with synchronized rotating cylinders.

With the image telegraph, the system used a metal stylus with a screw thread traveling across the cylinder as it turned. At the receiver, a similar stylus marked chemically impregnated paper with electric current.

Although Bakewell’s machine never became a commercial success, it was an important step before the introduction of Giovanni Caselli’s pantelegraph.

Further Reading on Frederick Bakewell:

Frederick Bakewell Ancestry Information

More on the History of Fax:

• The History of Fax - From Alexander Bain's 1843 invention to today's internet based fax systems (and everything in between)
• Alexander Bain - Developed an Experimental Fax Machine between 1843 and 1846
• Arthur Korn - Developed Fax Machine for Transmitting Photographs
• Edouard Belin - Inventor of the Bélinographe
• Frederick Bakewell - Improved Bain's Facsimile Machine
• Giovanni Caselli - Inventor of the Pantelegraph. Sent images 800km across telegraph wires 9 years before Alexander Graham Bell's Telephone Patent
• Herbert E. Ives - Sent first color fax
• Richard H. Ranger - Invented first Transatlantic Radio Fax
• Rudolf Hell - Invented the Hellschreiber
• Shelford Bidwell - Research in the field of "Telephotography"
• Pantelegraph - An early fax invention used to transmit images over telegraph lines
• Fultograph - An early fax invention used to transmit images over radio waves"
• Telautograph - An early fax invention used to transmit signatures over long distances
• 3D Fax - A 1990s technique used to send computer code over a fax machine. Each page could hold about 50kb of information
• Radiofax - Still used today, a method for transmitting images over long distances through radio. Also known as HF Fax or Weatherfax