G'day shanghaiceltic,

Of course ... he didn't invent the "Wheatstone Bridge" ... as head of the Royal Society he introduced and explained the invention ... actually by ... er ... um ... well, nobody else seems to remember his name either! Wheatstone did actually invent almost all of the applications and techniques for the bridge ... but not the device that now bears his name!

And ... the German Konzertina [Uhlig's ... ?] was on sale before Wheatstone's English Concertina ... Wheatstone's 1827 patent was for the "Symphonium", which did introduce the fingering pattern later used for the English Concertina - but was mouth-blown! Wheatstone was experimenting with bellows by the early 1830s ... but didn't "publish" .. or sell ... (rather like Fox-Talbot's work on the real basis of modern photography ... but Daguerre published his beautiful ... but impractical - indeed deadly (mercury developed) - daguerroptype and is credited as inventor of photography).

I recently noticed a 1950s edition og the International Concertina Association which had run a quiz in the last issue ... and the given answer for "Inventor of the concertina" was "Wheatstone". In this next issue, they apologised and corrected the question to: "Inventor of the English concertina"!

Regards,

Bob Bolton