Looking at the many inventors and scientists that have come out of Durham School, none stand as tall as William Fothergill Cooke (1806-1879), who attended the school while it was still at its site on Palace Green from February 1822 to December 1823. He is most famous for being the co-inventor of the Cooke and Wheatstone Telegraph, the first electrical telegraph suitable for commercial use. This greatly improved the operation of the railway system, which was in its infancy in the 1830s, and in 1838 he constructed the first telegraph line in England, connecting Paddington to West Drayton of the Great Western Railway. With John Ricardo, he co-founded the Electrical Telegraph Company in 1846. He was recognised by his peers, and counted Isambard Kingdom Brunel amongst his friends. For his efforts, he was awarded the Albert Medal in 1867, and was knighted in 1869.

In the 1881 Dunelmian, the then-Headmaster Henry Holden wrote an account of a visit that William Fothergill Cooke took to Durham School: "It may be interesting, here, by the way, to mention that not very long ago this very son came to his old home, and, having obtained leave to go into a little room upstairs, astonished some members of the present Head-master's family by saying, 'In this room I invented the electric telegraph.' And those who are acquainted with the history of the invention, can testify that the words were anything but an empty boast."

While this statement is interesting- and certainly a piece of trivia I like to use when giving tours of the school- it is difficult to ascertain the truth of the matter. It is certainly that William Fothergill Cooke lived at the building known as School House, in the time when it was known as Bellasis Cottage. His father, Dr William Cooke, moved onto the site in August of 1822, coinciding with his son starting to attend Durham School, and he built the house- variously spelt Bellasis and Bellasyse- in 1824. Cooke would have lived there until he joined the Indian Army in 1826. He returned to Durham in the Spring of 1834, where he likely lived at Bellasyse Cottage until November 1835. During this time "he prepared a series of [anatomical] models with which his father used to illustrate his lectures at the Durham University; he had even formed the intention of founding an anatomical museum there." The house was eventually sold in November 1836; Cooke first began studying electrical communication in March of 1836.

In 1840, a controversy arose as to whether it was Cooke or Wheatstone who could be credited with inventing the electric telegraph, and the ensuing debate led to Cooke writing a two volume inquiry entitled The Electric Telegraph: Was It Invented by Professor Wheatstone?(eventually published in 1854). This means that his early process in developing the telegraph is extensibely documented. Nowhere in this account does it mention him moving to Durham for any part of the invention process. Thanks to his extensive collection of written letters, we know that the germ of the idea of the electric telegraph came on the 6th March 1836, when he saw a lecture by Georg Wilhelm Munke in Heidelberg in which he made use of Schilling's six needle telegraph. He would later say of this that "I was so much struck with the wonderful power of electricity, and so strongly impressed with its applicability to the practical transmission of telegraphic intelligence, that from that very day I entirely abandoned my former pursuits, and devoted myself thenceforth with equal ardour to the practical realisation of the electric telegraph."

In the first few weeks of March 1836, partly in Heidelberg and partly in Frankfurt, Cooke invented an early clockwork electrometer telegraph with three needles. On the 26th April he arrived back in London to perfect his creation, with sketches appearing in July. Throughout this time, all of his letters bore the address of his flat in Islington, not Durham. In January 1837 his design was substituted to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; as this design was considered too complicated and impractical, Charles Wheatstone was brought onto the project in April 1837. The patent was finally placed in the May of that year.

This would all seem to suggest that Henry Holden's claim that the electric telegraph being invented at Durham School could be false. There are two final pieces of evidence, however, that would suggest otherwise.

Firstly, when Bellasyse House was sold in 1836, a note in the November issue of The Durham County Advertiser listed the household furniture that would be sold at auction. Alongside the typical mahogany dining tables, window curtains, and "satin-wood" chairs was "an excellent FOOT-LATHE, chest of TOOLS, ELECTRIFYING MACHINE, Lady's Saddle, and a choice COLLECTION of STUFFED BIRDS and ANIMALS, in cases." These items give an impression of the environment the young William Fothergill Cooke would have lived in, surrounded by exotic scientific apparatus. I cannot help, however, but question the "Electrifying Machine"- was this evidence of Cooke's experiments?

The final piece of evidence has only recently come to light. The Chronological Index of Patentees and Applicants for Patents of Invention contains the following entry:

"17th August 1836 - A grant unto William Fothergill Cooke, of Bellayse College [sic], in the county of Durham, Esquire, for 'Improvements in winding up springs to produce continuous motion, applicable to various purposes'; 6 months"

The spring-based invention seems to be entirely unrelated to his work with the electrical telegraph. Key, however, is the fact that Cooke's address is put as 'Bellayse College'. There is, of course, no such place, but it is extremely probable that it is a corruption of 'Bellasyse Cottage', the result of a transcription mistake from the Patent Office. This would put Cooke in the building that would become School House as late as August 1836, in the exact same period that he was developing his famous electrical telegraph. Henry Holden's claim, it seems, may be true after all. .