Lord March, one evening at Ranelagh, expressed his regret to Sir Francis Delaval that he was not able to attend Newmarket at the next meeting.

"I am obliged," said he, "to stay in London; I shall, however, be at the Turf Coffee-house; I shall station fleet horses on the road to bring me the earliest intelligence of the event of the race, and I shall manage my bets accordingly." 'I asked at what time in the evening he expected to know who was winner.

He said about nine in the evening.

I asserted that I should be able to name the winning horse at four o'clock in the afternoon.
Lord March heard my assertion with so much incredulity, as to urge me to defend myself; and at length I offered to lay five hundred pounds that I would in London name the winning horse at Newmarket at five o'clock in the evening of the day when the great match in question was to be run.' The wager was however given up when Edgeworth told Lord March that he did not depend upon the fleetness or strength of horses to carry the desired intelligence.
His friend, Sir Francis Delaval, immediately put up under his directions an apparatus between his house and part of Piccadilly.

He adds: 'I also set up a night telegraph between a house which Sir Francis Delaval occupied at Hampstead, and one to which I had access in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury.