High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Sir William Fothergill Cooke (4 May 1806 – 25 June 1879) was an English inventor. With Charles Wheatstone, professor at King`s College, London, he was the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, for which a patent was filed in May 1837, and granted on 12 June 1837. Together with John Lewis Ricardo Cooke founded the Electric Telegraph Company, the world`s first public telegraph company. This effort commenced on 3 September 1845, with a final consolidation of and assignment to the Company of majority shares of stock in the Cooke-Wheatstone patents that were held between three Company principals including Ricardo and Cooke. Cooke had provided a portion of his shares to the syndicate members in exchange for monies from them: To establish the Company. This formation entered into by contractual indenture on 5 August 1846, provided in part for purchasing the full remaining patent interest and stock held by the telegraph`s other co-inventor Charles Wheatstone. British Telecom, the giant multi-national communications corporation based in over 170 countries worldwide today—with head offices situated in Durham and London, England—is a direct descendant of Cooke`s Electric Telegraph Company. Cooke was knighted in 1869.