Before the invention of the telephone as we now know it, there existed mechanical devices that were capable of transmitting spoken words. The earliest, still present on ships, were speaking tubes in which sound was transmitted along pipes. The ‘lover’s phone’, or tin can telephone, was another device capable of transmitting spoken words over a greater distance than would be possible during normal speech. The tin can telephone involved two diaphragms connected by a wire or taut string which transmitted mechanical vibrations.

Who it was exactly that invented the telephone has been matter of dispute since it was indeed invented. Following the invention of the electrochemical telegraph by Francisco Salva I Campillo in 1804, an electromagnetic telegraph was created by Baron Schilling in 1832 and was further improved in 1833 by Wilhelm Weber and Carl Friedrich Gauß. The invention of the telegraph and the subsequent improvements to it paved the way for the invention of the telephone, the latter the result of the combined efforts of Thomas Edison, Elisha Gray, Alexander Graham Bell, and Charles Bourseul. How lucky we are that we only need to head to Three.co.uk/store to buy a phone!