Who invented the telephone?

THE telephone is one of the greatest inventions of all time, allowing instant voice communication between people anywhere in the world.

But who came up with this ingenious invention - and how was the lucrative patent for the telephone won?

Who invented the telephone?

Alexander Graham Bell received the patent for the telephone on March 7, 1876.

In 1875, Bell and his partner Thomas Watson managed to create the first receiver that could turn electricity into sound.

It is believed the first words ever spoken over a telephone were spoken by Bell to Watson, when he said: "Mr Watson, come here. I want you."

Bell had not necessarily set out to create the telephone, but he had become preoccupied with transmitting human voice over wires while working on the harmonic telegraph in 1871.

The telegraph was designed as a machine meant to transmit multiple messages over one wire.

Other inventors, including Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray, made similar devices at the same time, but Bell won the race to the patent office.

Still, the other inventors contested his patent in a bitter, 20-year legal battle of over 550 court challenges, which the Bell Company won in the Supreme Court.

Bell launched the Bell Telephone Company, now AT&T, in 1877 and had exclusive rights to the technology.

Who was Alexander Graham Bell?

Alexander Graham Bell was an inventor, scientist and communicator, who achieved more than 18 patents across a wide variety of fields in his 75 years.

Much of his work focused on systems and technology to improve communication for deaf people.

His audiometer, which detected hearing problems, was one of his most effective inventions.

He also invented the metal detector, which was used to locate a bullet inside President Garfield after his assassination.

Bell also made the photophone, which transmitted speech on a beam of light, and the graphophone, which could record and play back sound, as well as flying machines and hydrofoil.

Dedicated to scientific discovery, he founded the Volta Laboratories in Washington DC with money he received from the Volta Prize awarded to him in 1880.

He launched Science Magazine and was President of the National Geographic Society.

Bell was born March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, and died in Nova Scotia, Canada on August 2 1922.

His father was a Speech Therapist and his mother a pianist; he was home educated and went to Edinburgh University.

He and Mabel Hubbard were married on July 11, 1877, and had four children, two sons who died very young, and two daughters.

Bell moved with his family to Canada in 1870, then the US in 1871.

He taught a set of symbols that represented speech sound to deaf people, and was always inventing, even from a very young age.

His wife and mother were deaf - which sits oddly beside his support for breeding programmes to weed out disease and disability, and his honorary presidency of the second International Conference of Eugenics in 1921.