Henry Christopher Mance

Sir Henry Christopher Mance, (6 September 1840 – 21 April 1926) was a British electrical engineer and a former president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. He was knighted for developing the heliograph.

Career Born in Exeter, he was educated privately.

He joined the Persian Gulf Telegraph Department in 1863, and was employed on the laying of the first Persian Gulf submarine communications cable. In 1879, he was appointed electrician to the Department, which position he held throughout his working life. An inventive man, he was responsible for a number of important developments in the field of cable laying, testing and usage.

In 1869 he invented the heliograph, a wireless solar telegraph that signals by flashes of sunlight using Morse code reflected by a mirror. The flashes were produced by momentarily pivoting the mirror.