Bell was a British teacher to deaf people. He was born in Scotland in 1847 and went to school in London. Bell was interested in helping deaf people to learn to speak. He taught people how to use their mouths to make the sounds needed for talking.

    Bell's family moved to Canada in 1870 and to the USA in 1871. For several years he taught the people who could not speak in Boston. But at the same time he was developing a way to use electricity to send the sounds of talking along a wire, and he made the first telephone in June, 1875.

    The telephone developed quickly in the USA over the next few years. The Bell Telephone Company started in 1877, and in 1878 the first telephone centre was built in New York. More than 150,000 people had telephones in their homes ten years later. Bell was a kind man and spent much of his money and time during the rest of his life helping deaf people. In 1922 he died in Canada.