Sir William Henry Preece KCB FRS (1834-1913) was a Welsh electrical engineer and inventor. He was educated at King's College School and King's College London. He then went on to study at the Royal Institution, under the tuition of Michael Faraday. He worked at the Post Office throughout his career, first as consulting engineer and then as Engineer-in-Chief from 1892. He refined the railway signalling system, increasing railway safety. He also developed his own wireless telegraphy and telephony system in 1892, similar to the system Alexander Graham Bell had patented in 1876. He served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers between April 1898 and November 1899. Upon his retirement in 1899 he was knighted.