Full name: Alexander Graham Bell Born: 3rd March 1847 Invention/Achievement:The Telephone Date of introduction/Achievement: 1876 (First Patent) Died: 2nd August 1922

In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first US Patent for a device that produced clear and intelligible replication of the human voice across distance - a telephone.  

This invention, and the communications network that it generated, has transformed society and is today central to social and commercial life the world over.  Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, the son of Professor Alexander Melville Bell.  His uncle, father and grandfather worked on elocution, while his mother began to go deaf while Bell was a boy.  

He soon became interested in sound mechanics, and at 16 had become highly skilful in the adaptation of "visible speech" (sign language) to teach deaf-mute children.  Bell was an inventive and sensitive youth, a skilful piano player and artist.  

In 1870 Bell and his family emigrated to the United States, where Bell continued his experiments with sound and electricity.

In 1874 he received backing from wealthy patrons for development of a system for multiplexing (transmitting multiple messages simultaneously) along a telegraph wire.  By 1875 he had developed and applied for a patent for an "Acoustic Telegraph".  On 7^th March 1876 Bell was granted Patent no. 174,465 by the US Patent Office.  There was some controversy about the patent - several others were working on telephony technology.  However, Bell's patent stood and from there on matters progressed rapidly.  

Unlike many inventors who fail to profit from their ideas, Bell prospered.  In 1877 the Bell Telephone Company was formed.  Bell owned one third of the shares and became a very wealthy man.  

Shortly after, Bell and his partners offered to sell his patent outright to Western Union for $100,000, which they turned down - later Western Union estimated in hindsight the patent to be worth $25 million.  

The telephone was just one product of the fertile mind of Alexander Bell.  He also invented a "Photophone" that transmitted sounds along a beam of light, presaging fibre optic communications of the 1980s.  In 1881 he developed a primitive metal detector.  

During the 1890s bell experimented with heavier-than-air aircraft and built a hydrofoil boat.  In 1877 Bell married Mabel Hubbard, with whom he had four children.

He died aged 75, on 2^nd August 1922 at his private estate in Nova Scotia.