Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/387

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370
EDISON—EDWARD.

Gotha. In Nov. 1882, he was promoted to the rank of Vice-Admiral in Her Majesty's fleet.


EDISON, Thomas Alva, inventor, born in Ohio in 1847. The deficiencies of his education (limited to a school attendance of eight weeks) were in part compensated for by the care of his mother and by his early passion for reading, which took particularly the direction of chemistry. He became when still very young a newsboy on a railway, where he was able to continue his reading, and even to make some experiments in chemistry, and to finally publish an amateur paper. Becoming interested in telegraphy he studied it late at night in a railway station, and in a few months became so expert an operator that he was successively employed at Port Huron, Michigan, Stratford, Canada, and Adrian, Michigan. At this last place he fitted up a small shop for the repair of telegraph instruments, and for the manufacture of novel machinery. From Adrian he went to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he invented his automatic repeater. After brief stays at various places he settled at Cincinnati, Ohio, and at the age of twenty had acquired some little reputation as a successful inventor, but was soon called to Boston on telegraphic business, where he set up a shop for his experiments. Not long afterwards he was made superintendent of the Gold Indicator Co. in New York, and while in that position established his factory for experiments in Newark, New Jersey. In 1876 he resigned his superintendency in order to devote his entire time to research and invention, locating himself for this purpose about twenty-five miles from New York, at a place called Menlo Park. He remained there until 1882, when he was obliged to return to New York to personally supervise the introduction of electric light into the city. Mr. Edison's inventions, which number about three hundred, include the carbon telephone, the phonograph, the micro-tasimeter, the aërophone, the megaphone, the phonometer, the electric pen, and the quadruplex system of telegraphing.


EDMUNDS, George F., lawyer and politician, was born in Richmond, Vermont, Feb. 1, 1828. He was educated at the common school and by a private tutor, studied law at an early age, and began the practice in 1849. In 1851 he removed to Burlington, Vermont. From 1854 to 1859 he was a member of the lower branch of the State Legislature, serving as Speaker for three of these years. In 1861-2 he was a State Senator acting as Speaker pro tempore. On the death of Mr. Foote in 1866, he was appointed to the vacancy in the U. S. Senate, which position he has continued to fill by successive re-elections. He is one of the prominent Republican leaders of that body, and has been a member of some of its most important committees. He was a member of the Electoral Commission in 1876, which decided the Presidential controversy between Mr. Hayes and Mr. Tilden. At the National Convention in 1880, he received some votes for the nomination to the Presidency.


EDWARD, Thomas, son of a private in the Fifeshire Militia, was born at Gosport in 1814, and after his parents' return to Scotland, was brought up by them at Aberdeen. His education, such as it was, terminated when he was six years old. For the next four years he earned his own bread by working at Grandholm Factory, and then he was apprenticed to a shoemaker and he worked at this trade till 1875. In 1837 he married, gave up the idea of emigration, which for some time he had seriously entertained, and settled at Banff. From his earliest boyhood he displayed the greatest enthusiasm for the study of natural history. After