Many different electrical telegraph systems were invented, but the ones that became widespread fit into two broad categories. The offices were connected by wires, usually supported overhead on utility poles. Text telegraphy consisted of two or more geographically separated stations, called telegraph offices. Electrical telegraphy can be considered to be the first example of electrical engineering. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems called telegraphs, that were devised to communicate text messages quicker than physical transportation. Early system for transmitting text over wiresĬooke and Wheatstone's five-needle telegraph from 1837 Morse Telegraph Hughes telegraph, an early (1855) teleprinter built by Siemens and HalskeĮlectrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century.
