History

First published in 1832, Chapter 7 of Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope describes an arrangement of wires connected with an electrical machine used to protect a display called "Dorfeuille's Hell" in the Western Museum of natural history in Cincinnati,^[1] which she herself invented.^[2] Published in 1870, Chapter 22 of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, describes, "The Lightning Bolts of Captain Nemo" the use of electrification of a structure as a defensive weapon.^[3] Published in 1889, Mark Twain's novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, uses an electric fence for defensive purposes.

David H. Wilson obtained United States Patent 343,939 in 1886, combining protection, an alarm bell, and telephone communications. He constructed an experimental 30-mile electric fence energized by a water wheel in Texas in 1888, but it was not successful.^[4]

In 1905, the Russian army improvised electric fences during the Russo-Japanese War at Port Arthur. In 1915, during World War I, the German army installed the "Wire of Death", an electrified fences along the border between Belgium and the Netherlands ^[5] to prevent unathorized movement of people across the border. The fences covered 300 kilometres and consisted of several strands of copper wire, backed with barbed wire, and energized to several thousand volts. An estimated 3,000 human fatalities were caused by the fence, as well as the destruction of livestock.

Electric fences were used to control livestock in the United States in the early 1930s, and electric fencing technology developed in both the United States and New Zealand.

An early application of the electric fence for livestock control was developed in 1936–1937 by New Zealand inventor Bill Gallagher. Built from a car ignition trembler coil set, Gallagher used the device to keep his horse from scratching itself against his car. Gallagher later started the Gallagher Group to improve and market the design.^[6] In 1962, another New Zealand inventor, Doug Phillips, invented the non-shortable electric fence based on capacitor discharge.^[7]This significantly increased the range an electric fence could be used from a few hundred metres to 35 km (~20 miles), and reduced the cost of fencing by more than 80%.^{[citation needed]} The non-shortable electric fence was patented by Phillips and by 1964 was manufactured by Plastic Products, a New Zealand firm, under the name "Waikato Electric Fence."^{[citation needed]} This idea was to replace ceramic with plastic insulators. A variety of plastic insulators are now used on farms throughout the world today.

By 1939, public safety concerns in the United States prompted Underwriters' Laboratories to publish a bulletin on electric shock from electric fences, leading to the ANSI/UL standard No. 69 for electric fence controllers.^[8]

In 1969 Robert B. Cox, a farmer in Adams County, Iowa, invented an improved electric fence bracket and was issued United States Patent No. 3,516,643 on June 23, 1970. This bracket improved electric fences by keeping the wire high enough above the ground and far enough away from the fence to permit grass and weeds growing beneath the wire to be mowed. The brackets attached to the posts by what may be called a "pivot bind" or "torsion-lock." The weight of the bracket, the attached insulator and the electric wire attached to the insulator bind the bracket to the post.

Electric fences have improved significantly over the years. Improvements include:

• Polyethylene insulators replacing porcelain insulators, beginning in the 1960s. Polyethylene is much cheaper than porcelain and is less breakable.
• Improvements in electrical design of the fence energizer, often called a "charger" (USA) or "fencer" (UK).
• Changes in laws. In some jurisdictions, certain types of electrical outputs for fences were unlawful until the 1950s or 1960s. In other areas, signage requirements and other restrictions limited usability. Many US cities continue to have outdated laws prohibiting electric fences to prevent agricultural fences from entering the city. Houston in Texas for example, changed their ordinance that prohibited electric fencing in 2008.^[9]
• Introduction of high tensile (HT) steel fence wire in the 1970s in New Zealand and in the 1980s in the United States.
• Introduction of synthetic webbing and rope-like fencing materials woven with fine conducting wires.
• Design of moveable fence components, such as Tumblewheel.