The First Burglar Alarm

The First Burglar Alarm

The first burglar alarm was patented by the Somerville reverend Augustus Russell Pope in 1853. It used an electromagnetic circuit to detect when protected doors and windows were tampered with. The alarm would sit on a fireplace mantle or in a cupboard. It had an on/off switch on one side and was connected to copper wires on the other. These wires, insulated by varnish, would be run through slots cut into the floors and walls, and would attach to metal contacts on the doors and windows. When doors or windows were opened—disrupting the circuit—the bell would ring. 

Pope sold the alarm patent to fellow Bostonian Edwin Holmes in 1857 for $1,500. Pope may have invented it, but Holmes and his son were the ones who popularized it. At the time, burglary was more common in New York City than in Boston. Seeing this as an opportunity to sell more of his product, Holmes moved to the city where “all the country’s burglars made their home.” 

His move to New York proved successful. By 1877, Holmes had sold enough systems to establish the first network of alarms that were monitored by a central station. He sent a copy of this central station to his son—Edwin T. Holmes—in Boston, with instructions to set up a similar system here. 

In order to achieve this, Edwin T. Holmes entered into an innovative symbiotic relationship with Alexander Graham Bell. Bell had already strung telephone wires around the greater Boston area. Bell and Edwin T. Holmes reached an agreement: during the day the wires would be used for telephones, and at night they would be used for alarm systems. Edwin T. Holmes quickly assembled a 700-alarm network using telephone wires in Boston, which his father then copied in New York City. 

In 1905, four years after Edwin Holmes’ death, the Holmes Electric Protective Company sold to AT&T. AT&T then connected the alarm systems to emergency call centers able to directly dispatch fire and police.