But it will be seen from our life of William Siemens that Soren
Hjorth, a Danish inventor, had forestalled them.
In 1870 the electric telegraph lines of the United Kingdom, worked by
different companies, were transferred to the Post Office, and placed
under Government control.
Wheatstone was knighted in 1868, after his completion of the automatic
telegraph. He had previously been made a Chevalier of the Legion of
Honour. Some thirty-four distinctions and diplomas of home or foreign
societies bore witness to his scientific reputation. Since 1836 he had
been a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1873 he was appointed a
Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences. The same year he
was awarded the Ampere Medal by the French Society for the Encouragement
of National Industry. In 1875 he was created an honorary member of the
Institution of Civil Engineers. He was a D.C.L. of Oxford and an LL.D.
of Cambridge.
While on a visit to Paris during the autumn of 1875, and engaged in
perfecting his receiving instrument for submarine cables, he caught a
cold, which produced inflammation of the lungs, an illness from which he
died in Paris, on October 19, 1875. A memorial service was held in the
Anglican Chapel, Paris, and attended by a deputation of the Academy.
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