Baron Pavel Schilling

The early history (about before 1840) of electrical telegraphy became canonical long ago. The key persons in it are quite deserved. They are: Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) and Sir William Fothergrill Cooke (1806-1879) in Great Britain and Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872) in the USA. Of course, there are the most forcible arguments for this fact -just due to their works telegraphy turned into a practical field. Quite much attention in this history is paid to such scientists as Samuel Thomas von Sommering (1755-1830), Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1835), Wilhelm Weber (1804-1891) and some others. A deserved place in his row is taken by the Russian scientist Baron Pavel Lwovich Schilling (1786-1837). However, from our point of view the role of Shilling is introduced in today's manuscripts too shy - at best only several lines are devoted to him. That's why practically in no one contemporary publication on the history of telegraphy his works are described in full, and apart of his (moreover the most essential) achievements are either not mentioned simply or explained in a wrong way. But Schilling not only put forward several innovatory ideas but also realized them in practice. And what is more proved and clearly retraced link between his works and the works of those who are admitted as the most outstanding inventors in the field of telegraphy is simply ignored.