Gill was drawn into controversy in 2003 over who actually invented the telephone, when archived documents unearthed by the Science Museum, London suggested that a device made by Johann Philipp Reis and tested by STC in 1947 would pre-date Alexander Graham Bell by 15 years.
Another line was erected between the physical cabinet at Garnier's Institute across the playground to one of the classrooms, and there was a tradition in the school that the boys were afraid of creating an uproar in the room for fear that Philipp Reis would hear them with his " telephon ".
However, in Germany Johann Philipp Reis is seen as a leading telephone pioneer who stopped only just short of a successful device, and as well the Italian-American inventor and businessman Antonio Meucci has been recognized by the U . S . House of Representatives for his contributory work on the telephone.
Differently from other pioneers of the telephone, such as Charles Bourseul, Philipp Reis, Innocenzo Manzetti and others, he did not think about transmitting voice by using the principle of the telegraph key ( in scientific jargon, the " make-and-break " method ), but he looked for a " continuous " solution, which means without interrupting the electric flux.