New telegraphs

Two new types of optical telegraphs were developed in Denmark in the years following 1807. One was developed by First Lieutenant Andreas Anton Frederik von Schumacher (1783-1823), who worked with telegraphs around the Great Belt. Schumacher´s telegraph proved a great success and was used in the Great Belt right up to 1862. It was set up in Nyborg, Korsør and in a line southwards to Lolland, Langeland and Tåsinge during the war.

Sketch of Schumacher´s frame telegraph. Copy: Post & Tele Museum.

Schumacher´s telegraph was constructed so that five heavy iron boards, with numerical values of 1, 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000, were hoisted up in a frame and multiplied by numbers from 1-9, based on how high on the frame they were hoisted. The telegraph was easy to use and easy to read. Schumacher had constructed a small repeating mechanism for the operators, which could stand inside the telegraph building and which showed the position of the boards on the large telegraph.

Andreas Anthon Frederik von Schumacher (1783-1823). Portrait of him as a young man. The Royal Library.

Schumacher was an intelligent officer, who had a meteoric career as an inventor. He was 25 when he designed the frame telegraph that was to endure until 1862 and that was frequently (by Danes) said to be the best in the world. He later worked on the development of rockets for military purposes.