Patrick Bernard Delany

Patrick Bernard Delany (28 January 1845 – 19 October 1924) was an Irish-American engineer and inventor. Newspaper feature coverage in 1909 called him "the world's greatest telegraph expert and inventor."

Biography

He was born in King's County, Ireland (now Offaly). He came to the U.S. at the age of 10 and learned telegraphy in Hartford, Connecticut. Gradually he worked up from office boy to be superintendent of lines. In 1872 he and Thomas Edison worked together as engineers for the Automatic Telegraph Company.

His first patent, related to telegraph relays, was granted in 1873. In 1877 Delaney left the industry entirely, to work as a newspaper correspondent, editor, and writer, until the discovery in 1880 that his patent could be used as an alternative technology to challenge the Western Union Telegraph Company's monopoly on telegraph relays. Delaney's later inventions included more than 150 patents registered in the U.S. through 1922. Almost all relate to telegraphy in some way: they cover anti-induction cables which were "extensively manufactured at Pittsburg, Penn" as of 1895,

From 1893 to 1895 he was a vice president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.