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Mr. Steane, who received his tuition in electricity of the day while he was a pupil of Doctor Berbeck's school in City Road, London, England, in 1850, made a keen study in electricity, following up with numerous investigations and experiments. In later years he became a constant reader of the Scientific American, and it was in one of these jounals published in the seventies, before telephones were in use, that there was a brief description of a telephone, the invention of Alexander Bell, then of Boston, but who was born in Scotland.

As an "amateur" about that time, Mr Steane, who was then City Engineer of Sandhurst, (now Bendigo) in Victoria, after numerous experiments made four phones departing from the original ideas and construction. The resulting instruments are, therefore, not a true copy of Bell's telephones, which were not introduced into Austrlia until some years later, and after Mr. Steane had had his instruments successfully in use for some considerable time. After experimenting in making his sets, Mr Steane provided a "horse shoe" magnet, one pole to an iron ring at the edge of the diaphragm, and the other pole at the centre with a small electro-magnet varying the magnetic effect of the permanent magnet, which fully answered all expectations.

In Mr. Bell's telephone receiver there was a straight permanent magnet coil of fine insulated wire at one end. One instrument could be used as a transmitter when properly connected with a second instrument as a receiver, then by speaking to the vibrating diaphragm in the transmitter, acting on the magnetism in such a way that the diaphragm in both the transmitter and receiver would synchronize, the spoken words would be reproduced by another set of instruments.

Some considerable time elapsed after Mr. Steane's phones were made and were in use before the horse shoe magnet was patented and introduced. This type of telephone was successfully used for many years in exchanges. Some months after Mr. steane's phones were made and in use, the first of Bell's instruments with the "straight" magnet were imported to Australia in parts, which were the first of Bell's telephones Mr. Steane had seen and of which a set was fitted together by him.

Experiments were made from time to time to make a "microphone" which would "talk" loudly, but without the expected success, the only result that could be arrived at at that time time was a "make and break", but success was, however, achieved at a later date. These original phone sets, of which there were four, were made and used by Mr. Steane in Bendigo, Victoria, and were worked with Le Clanche cells, which also operated a call bell. Transmission line glass insulators not beening then manufactured, the necks of glass bottles carried on spikes insulated with cork were made use of, which gave, then, very good results for transmission and reception.

The interesting telephone receivers illustrated by the photograph and drawings in the article were donated to the historical collection of the Institution, by Mr. G. R. Bowen Steane,through his son, Mr. A. E. Bowen Steane.
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