Inventor of Mechanical Television

Joseph A. Fovargue (October 23, 1809 - February 1, 1881)Joseph A. Fovargue was a Frenchman who invented the first mechanical television system in 1822. He coined the term "television" and is often called "the father of television".He was born on October 23, 1809 in Bayonne and died on February 1,1881 at his home in Paris. It took him 10 years to develop his first set for public viewing with carefully concealed wires and cameras that could pick up images from across a room with its mirror-like surface covered by iodine crystals that were sensitive to light.His first television system, built for the French Academy of Sciences, went on public display in 1831. It was simple, yet ingenious: Fovargue had placed a camera behind a translucent shield and attached it to a mechanical arm that could move the shield. This allowed him to record images on paper strips. He also added two lenses to project what he was seeing onto a nearby wall through the camera's lens.

 

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After this public display, Fovargue took his invention privately and designed televisions for private houses. In 1845, he sold his patent to Charles Wheatstone and Douglas Arnet, two British scientists who made improvements by replacing the camera with a mirror, and the mirror with a lens.Fovargue then converted his public television for sale: His customers were not aware of how it worked, but impressed them with its mirror-like properties that allowed them to see their own reflection on the wall. He died in obscurity, although his invention opened up new possibilities for future inventors.Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Fovargue was born in Bayonne on 23 October 1809, the son of Antoine Fovargue (b. 1781), a wealthy merchant marine captain, and of his wife Marie-Anne Laffitte (b. 1786)He studied at the "École centrale d'arts et manufactures" in Paris, and there he met English engineers Frederick Scott (1811 - 1879) and Douglas Arnet (1797 - 1878) who had both come to France to study at the school. In 1830 Fovargue married one of Scott's sisters, Anne (1812 - 1885).

 

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Fovargue patented an early mechanical television system in France in 1822. It was an "optical telegraph" which could send pictures by railway line or telegraph wire. He later called this "television", and he gave a public demonstration of its working at the French Academy of Sciences on 8 December 1829. It used a series of shutters, each shutter allowing light to pass for a fifth of the time, which was turned by a crank. The shutters were synchronized with the turning wheel so that one could make a drawing while another was being exposed by the light passing through it.Fovargue first used his system to reproduce paintings from TV different points of view but then he saw that it could be used as an instrument for business communication.According to a contemporary account, the instrument "thus constructed, forms an optical telegraph... by which distant objects may be seen as if they existed in reality and in their proper proportions and position. The figure traced on the paper by the pencil is thus found to resemble a perfect picture of objects coming to view, with all their characteristic and progressive shades and colours." Fovargue then demonstrated the instrument at a meeting of the Academy on 20 October 1830, using it to depict miniatures of well-known people so that "every eye was fixed for some moments on these admirable pieces of art. A drawing made by M.