Alexander Bain

He was a widower and had a son and a daughter. Both of his children were abroad. According to some accounts, his son lived in America while his daughter on the Continent. After his death, his body was buried on Kirkintilloch.

His inventions enabled him to earn a large sum of money. Later, he faced financial problem due to lack of proper investment. In 1873, he received a Civil List pension from Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.

His invention of chemical telegraph inspired Wheatstone to develop his automatic sender. To honor his inventions, the main BT building in Glasgow is named Alexander Bain House.

Alexander Bain was one of the thirteen children of a crofter. Although he did not excel in academics, he developed interest in science after he attended a science lecture when he was only 12 years old.

In order to learn the art of clock making, he went to London in 1837. After reaching London, he worked as a journeyman in Clerkenwell. At the same time, he used to attend lectures at the Polytechnic Institution.

For most of the period during 1840 to 1860, he remained busy in developing electric clocks. His creation of mantel clock consisted of complex design. It worked on an electro-magnetic pull push.

He set up his own workshop in Hanover Street. On 11 January 1841, he got his electric clock patented. This clock consisted of a pendulum which used to move by electromagnetic impulses.

In the month of December of 1841, along with Lieutenant Thomas Wright RN, he patented the technique for usage of electricity to control railway engines.

One of his patents includes his plan of inverting the needle telegraph that Ampere, Wheatstone and others developed earlier. He employed a suspended movable coil between the poles of a fixed magnet to make signals.

This talented inventor demonstrated his famous models of electric clock to Sir Charles Wheatstone, an English scientist and inventor in 1840. After seeing those models, Wheatstone opined that there was no future of those clocks.