Biographies of People who Invented Fax Technology

Last Update: August 9th, 2021

With every piece of technology we have in our lives, there is a story and a string of inventions that helped it become what it is today.

We have assembled a collection of biographical information on the individuals who were responsible for the inventions, experiments, and technology that has given us today’s fax technology.

Alexander Bain

Clockmaker credited with sending an image over a synchronized clock and pendulum system – an early version of a facsimile machine – as well as a chemical telegraph capable of operating six times faster than regular telegraphs.

Giovanni Caselli

Italian Physicist and Catholic Priest who invented the pantelegraph (a fax machine that operated over telegraph lines) sending images over the 800km distance of Paris and Marseille 12 years before Alexander Graham Bell received his telephone patent.

Frederick Bakewell

Physicist credited with improving Bain’s facsimile machine, replacing the pendulums with synchronized rotating cylinders

Shelford Bidwell

English physicist and inventor famous for work in the field of “telephotography” – sending a picture over distances through electrical current,

Arthur Korn

German inventor credited with creating the ability to send photographs across distances. One of the first practical applications of this technology was the use of the system by the German police to send fingerprints across distances.

Edouard Belin

Inventor of the phototelegraphic apparatus named the Bélinographe. Initially designed to send images over telegraph and telephone networks, it was later updated to send over radio waves as well.

Rudolf Hell

Created the Hellschreiber, one of the precursors to today’s fax machines. The invention is still in use today by HAM radio operators.

Richard H Ranger

Credited with inventing the wireless photoradiogram, also known as the transoceanic radio facsimile. In 1924 sent a picture of President Coolidge from New York to London.

Herbert E. Ives

Responsible for the development of facsimile and television systems with AT&T in the 1st half the 20th century. First color facsimile transmitted.