View source for Edwin Holmes (inventor)

{{short description|American burglar alarm inventor (1820–1901)}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name              = Edwin Holmes

|image             = Edwin Holmes (inventor).jpg
|image_size       = 230px
|caption           = 
|birth_date        = {{birth date|1820|4|25}}
|birth_place       = [[West Boylston, Massachusetts]], US
|death_date        = 1901
|death_place       = 
|residence         = 
|nationality       = American
|field             = 
|work_institutions = 
|alma_mater        = 
|doctoral_advisor  = 
|doctoral_students = 
|known_for         = [[Burglar alarm]]
}}

'''Edwin Holmes''' (April 25, 1820 – 1901)<ref name=bio>John Fischer, DGA Security Systems, Inc. [http://www.csaaul.org/EdwinHolmes1.html Our Father’s Beginning] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120331144457/http://www.csaaul.org/EdwinHolmes1.html |date=2012-03-31 }}. Updated May 5, 2010</ref><ref name=b4/> was an American businessman who is credited with inventing, commercializing the electromagnetic [[burglar alarm]] and with establishing the first burglar alarm networks.

==Biography==
Holmes was born in [[West Boylston, Massachusetts]], to Sally Graves and Thomas Holmes. His father was from New Hampshire where he served as the town postmaster. Holmes married Eliza Ann Richardson. They had four children (two boys and two girls). One girl was [[RMS Titanic|Titanic]] survivor [[Ella Holmes White]].<ref>[https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/edwin-holmes_37816936 Genealogy of the Holmes family]</ref>

Edwin started his business in 1849 in Boston, as a seller of household items and entrepreneur, and acquired skills which later helped him in establishing the burglar alarm industry.<ref name=bio/>

==Burglar alarm==
The alarm was patented in 1853 by the Reverend Augustus 
Russell Pope (1819–1858) of Somerville, Massachusetts.<ref name=b4/><ref>A. R. Pope "Improvement in Electro-Magnetic Alarms" {{US patent|9802}} Issued October 21, 1853 (Middle name of the author misprinted on Google)</ref> Edwin Holmes acquired Pope's patent rights in 1857 for US$1500<ref name=b2/> and manufactured the device in his factory in [[Boston, Massachusetts]]. He began to sell them in 1858. His son Edwin Thomas Holmes took over his father's company after his death and documented the events in his biography, ''A Wonderful Fifty Years''.<ref name=r1>[http://ccjwjs1102.pbworks.com/Facts History of the Pope/Holmes burglar alarm]</ref><ref name=b3/><ref name=b1/>

Initially, people were fearful of and skeptical about using electricity for alarms, and the business did not go well. Therefore, in 1859, in search of a new and bigger market Holmes moved his business to New York, which was then perceived as a place where "all the country's burglars made their home". There, by 1866 he installed 1,200 home alarms and began successful marketing among business enterprises. By 1877, he established the first network of alarms monitored by a central station in New York and sent his son to copy this system in Boston. Edwin Thomas, however, discovered that the network could use the pre-existing phone cables instead of laying its own. In this way, he quickly assembled a 700-alarm network, which his father then copied in New York.<ref name=b1/>

In 1878, Holmes became the president of the newly established Bell Phone Company. While he sold his interests two years later for US$100,000,<ref>John Fischer, DGA Security Systems, Inc.  [http://www.csaaul.org/BirthofCentralStationIdea.html Protecting the Protection?] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120331144501/http://www.csaaul.org/BirthofCentralStationIdea.html |date=2012-03-31 }}. Updated May 5, 2010</ref> he kept his rights to use the company phone lines for his alarm system.<ref name=b1/> The use of electricity for [[street light]]s in 1880 changed the market, as people started accepting electrical models. The [[American Telephone and Telegraph Company]] bought the Holmes Burglar business in 1905, linking it to emergency call systems for contacting police and fire fighting personnel.<ref name=b2/> After World War II, many inventions were introduced into the business of home alarm systems. It became less expensive and more versatile for use in the 1980s and by the middle of the 1990s the system had become a standard feature. In the most advanced examples of anti-burglary systems, motion detectors, surveillance equipment and electronic tracking devices are being used.

== See also ==
* [[American District Telegraph]]

==References==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name=b1>{{cite book|author=IFPO|title=The Professional Protection Officer: Practical Security Strategies and Emerging Trends|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2zzb3sku41sC&pg=PA90|access-date=2 September 2011|date=10 March 2010|publisher=Butterworth-Heinemann|isbn=978-1-85617-746-7|pages=90–}}</ref>

<ref name=b2>{{cite book|author1=Seungmug Lee|author2=Rutgers The State University of New Jersey – Newark|title=The impact of home burglar alarm systems on residential burglaries|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ie894uimQYoC&pg=PA26|access-date=2 September 2011|year=2008|isbn=978-0-549-79130-0|pages=26–}}{{Dead link|date=February 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

<ref name=b3>{{cite book|author=Edwin Thomas Holmes|title=A Wonderful Fifty Years|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wxwOkgAACAAJ|access-date=2 September 2011|date=September 2010|publisher=Kessinger Publishing, LLC|isbn=978-1-166-49973-0}}</ref>

<ref name=b4>{{cite book|author=Karen C. S. Donnelly|title=Domestic security: the Holmes burglar alarm telegraph, 1853–1876|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Eg5CHQAACAAJ|access-date=2 September 2011|year=1992|publisher=Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania}} [https://archive.org/stream/domesticsecurity00donn/domesticsecurity00donn_djvu.txt online text]</ref>
}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holmes, Edwin}}
[[Category:19th-century American inventors]]
[[Category:1820 births]]
[[Category:1901 deaths]]