Charles Wheatstone was born near Gloucester in 1802. Having completed
his primary schooling, Charles was apprenticed to his uncle, who was
a maker and seller of musical instruments. He showed little aptitude
either in the workshop or in the store, and much preferred to continue
the study of books. His father eventually took him from his uncle's
charge and allowed him to follow his bent. He translated poetry from
the French at the age of fifteen, and wrote some verse of his own. He
spent all the money he could secure on books. Becoming interested in a
book on Volta's experiments with electricity, he saved up his coppers
until he could purchase it. It was in French, and he found the
technical descriptions rather too difficult for his comprehension, so
that he was forced to save again to buy a French-English dictionary.
With the aid of this he mastered the volume.

Immediately his attention was turned toward the wonders of the infant
science of electricity, and he eagerly endeavored to perform the
experiments described. Aided by his older brother, he set to work on
a battery as a source of current. Running short of funds with which to
purchase copper plates, he again began to save his pennies. Then the
idea occurred to him to use the pennies themselves, and his first
battery was soon complete.

He continued his experiments in various fields until, at the age of
nineteen, he first brought himself to public notice with his enchanted
lyre. This he placed on exhibition in music-shops in London. It
consisted of a small lyre suspended from the ceiling which gave forth,
in turn, the sounds of various musical instruments. Really the lyre
was merely a sounding-box, and the vibrations of the music were
conveyed from instruments, played in the next room, to the lyre