electrical telegraph

Cooke and Wheatstone's five-needle telegraph from 1837 Morse telegraph Hughes telegraph, an early (1855) teleprinter built by Siemens and Halske

Electrical telegraphy is point-to-point distance communicating via sending electric signals over wire, a system primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems called telegraphs, that were devised to send text messages more quickly than physically carrying them. Electrical telegraphy can be considered the first example of electrical engineering.