Francis Whishaw

[10][11] Over some indifference from Prince Albert, president of the Society, Whishaw pulled together a committee including Wentworth Dilke, Francis Fuller, and Robert Stephenson.

[14] Whishaw's March 1845 demonstration of gutta percha to the Society of Arts is credited with stimulating William Siemens to use it for the insulation of cables, based on suggestions of Michael Faraday.

[15] His own inventions included the velocentimeter, a watch for timing railway trains,[16] and a gutta percha speaking trumpet, the "telakouphanon", proposed to the British Association.

[20][21] In the years before his death Whishaw had suffered from reduced health,[1] and had complained of pains in the head, and experience occasional brief memory loss.

[22] In October 1856 Francis Whishaw was found late evening by a policeman in a partially conscious state, sometime after leaving his residence to attend church in Kentish Town.