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The Burglar alarm was as simple as they come by todays standards compared to the modern smart burglar alarms. It was based on the telegraph the telegraph works by using electricity from
batteries with mechanical energy made by electromagnetism to send electrical impulses through a wire, making magnets attract and release thus clicking. Holmes Burglar Alarm worked on this premise but instead of sending signals via a circuit linking places it linked doors and windows with a small bell connected to an electromagnet so when a door or window opened it sent a jolt of electricity that made the bell ring!
Augustus Russell Pope had Patented his Idea in 1853 but due to poor health and his duties as a clergyman he never advanced it upon his death he transferred his rights to Edwin Holmes for a sum believed to be $1,500 and Holmes set about marketing it. Edwin Holmes soon decided that Boston was not the best market due to its lower crime levels and thought it would be best to take his idea to New York where crime was high and he predicted a desire for protection for burglars even higher.
The Idea was successful and in 1868 a pamphlet named A Treatise Upon the Best Method of Protecting Property From Burglars, and Human Life From Midnight Assassins, listed 1,000 subscribers to holmes services and over 200 testimonials such as
I have had Holmes Burglar Alarm Telegraph in my house three years. Three attempts at robbery have been made within that period, each of which would have been successful had it not been for this Alarm. I would not be without it one month for a thousand dollars. It is impossible to raise a window or open a door from the outside, after the Alarm is set, without awakening every inmate of my house,
P. T. Barnum, 1866.
Mr. HolmesMy Dear Sir:Since you put into my house your Yankee Telegraph for detecting thieves, I have been twice visited by burglars, who, in both instances, heard the Alarm Bell and thereupon made so sudden a retreat that it was vain to send after them either a pistol shot or a policeman. And I hope, sir, that you will fix one of the bells to the United States Treasury, to give warning of the approach of all the harpies.
Theodore Tilton, 1868.
Holmes developed the burglar alarm even further adding clocks and light and establishing a central station for a network of alarms . Once the device had proven itself in New York Holmes son returned to Boston to launch there and whilst in Boston Holmes Jr discovered that the new Telephone line service helping to expand the security system business into the huge modern industry it is today.
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