Pavel Schilling  Baron Pavel Lvovitch Schilling (1786–1837), also known as Paul Schilling, was a Russian military officer and diplomat of Baltic German origin. The majority of his career was spent working for the imperial Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a language officer at the Russian embassy in Munich. As a military officer, he took part in the War of the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon. In his later career, he was transferred to the Asian department of the ministry and undertook a tour of Mongolia to collect ancient manuscripts. Schilling is best known for his pioneering work in electrical telegraphy, which he undertook at his own initiative. While he was in Munich, he worked with Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring who was developing an electrochemical telegraph. Schilling developed the first electromagnetic telegraph that was of practical use. Schilling's design was a needle telegraph using magnetised needles suspended by a thread over a current-carrying coil. His design also greatly reduced the number of wires compared to Sömmerring's system by the use of binary coding. Tsar Nicholas I planned to install Schilling's telegraph on a link to Kronstadt, but cancelled the project after Schilling died. Other technological interests of Schilling included lithography, remote detonation of explosives, and submarine cables. Baron Pavel Lvovitch Schilling von Cannstadt was born in Reval (now Tallinn), Estonia, on 16 April 1786 (N.S.). He was an ethnic German, but a Russian citizen as Estonia was then part of the Russian Empire. His father was L. F. Schilling, commander of the 23rd Nizovsk infantry regiment, and Pavel was the eldest of four children. He was expected to follow a military career like his father, so he was sent to First Cadet Corps at the age of eleven. On graduating as a subaltern, he was posted to a unit commanded by F. I. Schubert and assigned cartographical surveying duties. Family circumstances obliged Schilling to resign his commission in 1803. He then joined the foreign service as a language officer. He was an attaché to the Russian embassy in Munich from 1809 to 1811. He first became interested in electrical science while he was in Munich through contact with Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring who was developing an electrical telegraph. His duties as a diplomat were light. He was left him with time on his hands, much of which he spent with Sömmerring, and he brought many Russian dignitaries to see Sömmerring's apparatus.