Bell, ALEXANDER MELVILLE

Bell, ALEXANDER MELVILLE, was born at Edinburgh in 1819, and there established himself as a teacher of elocution. In 1865 he removed to London, where, two years later, he published his work on Visible Speech (q.v.). He had been engaged for more than twenty years in perfecting his phonetic system; and with a view to bring it before the world, he visited the United States in 1868, and delivered a series of lectures, with such success that, in 1870, he removed to America, and finally settled in Washington. He has there published numerous manuals and essays on subjects connected with phonetics; and his Principles of Phonetics reached a 5th edition in 1887. Among his earlier writings may be noted an ingenious system of Steno-Phonography (1854).—His son, ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, the inventor of the telephone, was born at Edinburgh in 1847, and was educated at the High School there, and in Germany, obtaining at Würzburg the degree of Ph.D. He removed to America, and at Boston devoted himself to the teaching of deaf-mutes, and to spreading his father's system of 'Visible Speech.' His inventions of the articulating Telephone (q.v.) in 1872-76, of the Photophone (q.v.) in 1880, of the Graphophone (resembling Edison's Phonograph, q.v.) in 1887, and of kindred instruments, have since brought him both wealth and fame.