David Edward Hughes (16 May 1830 – 22 January 1900), was a British-American inventor, practical experimenter, and professor of music known for his work on the printing telegraph and the microphone. He is generally considered to have been born in London but his family moved around that time so he may have been born in Corwen, Wales. His family moved to the U.S. while he was a child and he became a professor of music in Kentucky. In 1855 he patented a printing telegraph. He moved back to London in 1857 and further pursued experimentation and invention, coming up with an improved carbon microphone in 1878. In 1879 he identified what seemed to be a new phenomenon during his experiments: sparking in one device could be heard in a separate portable microphone apparatus he had set up. It was most probably radio transmissions but this was nine years before electromagnetic radiation was a proven concept and Hughes was convinced by others that his discovery was simply electromagnetic induction. Biography Hughes was born in 1830, the son of a musically talented family hailing originally from Y Bala (the place of birth was either London or Corwen, Denbighshire), and emigrated to the United States at the age of seven. At only six years old, he is known to have played the harp and english concertina to a very high standard. At an early age, Hughes developed such musical ability that he is reported to have attracted attention of Herr Hast, an eminent German pianist in America, who procured for him a professorship of music at St. Joseph's College in Bardstown, Kentucky. Hughes also worked as a practical experimenter, coming up with the printing telegraph in 1855. He moved back to London in 1857 to sell his invention, and worked on the transmission of sound over wires. He worked on microphones and the development of the induction balance (later used in metal detectors). Despite Hughes' facility as an experimenter, he had little mathematical training. He was a friend of William Henry Preece. Printing telegraph In 1855, Hughes designed a printing telegraph system. In less than two years a number of small telegraph companies, including Western Union in early stages of development, united to form one large corporation — Western Union Telegraph Company — to carry on the business of telegraphy on the Hughes system. In Europe, the Hughes Telegraph System became an international