Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/157

 .' In 1804 he went to St. Albans, where, according to his own account, he conceived the idea of the Watercolour Society, of which he was one of the foundation members. He sent to their first exhibition (1805) 'Coloured Sketches and Views' of St. Albans, &c. After the first three years his contributions to the society's exhibitions were constant, but not numerous (they were fifty-nine in all), and were chiefly of a classical character, like the 'Vale of Tempe' and 'Ruins of Troy,' with architecture and groups of figures carefully finished. In 1815 he was appointed treasurer to the society, and he received one of three premiums awarded to its members in 1819. He left the society in 1821, and afterwards sent his principal works, seldom more than one a year, to the Royal Academy, where he exhibited for the last time in 1859. Between 1826 and 1844 he also sent drawings to Suffolk Street. Meanwhile he continued his scientific pursuits with much success. He invented the Graphic telescope, patented on 5 April 1811 (No. 3430), which was used by T. Horner in laying down his great panorama of London for the Coliseum in Regent's Park, and the lever microscope for watching the movements of animalcula. For the latter he received the 'Isis' gold medal of the Society of Arts. He became an active and useful member of this society in 1814. He was also a member of the Royal Institution, where he delivered the fourth Friday lecture in 1826. He was chairman of exhibitors, class 10, at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and received a prize medal for his Graphic telescope more than forty years after it was invented. He contributed a paper on atmospheric electricity to the 'Philosophical Magazine,' and several to the 'Transactions of the Society of Arts' and the 'Journals of the Royal Microscopic Society.' He published a 'Treatise on Optical Drawing Instruments' and 'Etchings of Shipping, Barges, Fishing Boats,' &c. (1809). He lived to be the oldest member of the Society of Arts, and the last survivor of the founders of the Watercolour Society. He enjoyed his faculties to the end, and died at 19 South Grove West, Stoke Newington, on 21 Oct. 1873, in his ninety-second year. In 1821 he married Elizabeth Straker, and had a large family. One of his sons was [q. v.]

 VARLEY, CROMWELL FLEETWOOD (1828–1883), electrical engineer, son of [q. v.], watercolour painter, and nephew of [q. v.], was born at Kentish Town, London, on 6 April 1828, and was named after two of his ancestors, Oliver Cromwell and General Fleetwood. [q. v.] was his first cousin. He was educated at St. Saviour's, Southwark, where he was a schoolfellow of Sir Sydney Waterlow. After leaving school he studied telegraphy, and, through the influence of [q. v.], was engaged in 1846 by the Electric and International Telegraph Company, with whom he remained until the acquisition of the telegraphs by the government in 1868, when he retired into private life, spending his time in bringing out new inventions. During the early part of his business career he attended lectures at the London Mechanics' Institute, and, in connection with his brother Theophilus, he inaugurated the chemistry class there.

The first improvement he introduced in telegraphy was the 'killing' of the wire by giving it a slight permanent elongation, which breaks out the bad places and removes the objectionable springiness which results from the drawing process. Next he devised a method of localising the faults in submarine cables, so that they could be easily found and remedied. On 16 Feb. 1854 he patented his double current key and relay (No. 371), by which it became possible to telegraph from London to Edinburgh direct; then came his polarised relay, his English patent anticipating by two days the date of Siemens's German patent for a like invention. His next improvement was the translating system for use in connection with the cables of the Dutch lines, and by its means messages were sent direct from England to St. Petersburg with the aid of two intermediate relays. In 1870 he patented an instrument, which he called a cymaphen, for the transmission of audible signals, and it is claimed for him that it contains the essentials of the modern telephone. However that may be, a year before the date of the Bell patent—namely, in 1870—music was transmitted by this instrument from the Canterbury Music-hall in Westminster Bridge Road to the Queen's Theatre in Long Acre over an ordinary telegraph wire with complete success.

Varley's name is probably chiefly remembered in connection with the Atlantic cable. The first cable, laid in August 1858, was a failure. Before the project for the second cable was published, it was referred to a committee, consisting of Robert Stephenson, Sir William Fairbairn, and Varley, to report as to its capabilities and the probability of its suc-