Charles Wheatstone: Difference between revisions

Charles Wheatstone was born near [[Gloucester, England|Gloucester]]. His father was a music-seller in the town, who moved to 128 Pall Mall, [[London]], four years later, becoming a teacher of the flute. Charles, the second son, went to a village school, near Gloucester, and afterwards to several institutions in London. One of them was in [[Kennington]], and kept by a Mrs. Castlemaine, who was astonished at his rapid progress. From another he ran away, but was captured at [[Windsor, Berkshire|Windsor]], not far from the theatre of his practical telegraph. As a boy he was very shy and sensitive, liking well to retire into an attic, without any other company than his own thoughts. When he was about fourteen years old he was apprenticed to his uncle and namesake, a maker and seller of musical instruments (such as the Wheatstone concertina), at 436 Strand, London; but he showed little taste for handicraft or business, and loved better to study books. His father encouraged him in this, and finally took him out of the uncle's charge.