Wow - no one has guessed yet. So I assume it's up to me to make the first terrible guess.

The indoor toilet.

Yup, that's pretty terrible. The Romans had them.

I'll say telegraph.

To paraphrase some guy -- The first shall be Garth, and the Garth shall be...sadly incorrect.

Jonathan isn't right either: the first telegraph message was sent in 1844, when Murray was just seven years old.

Hmm. Means my next guess better be something I'm pretty sure the Romans didn't have (based upon my knowledge of the Romans, gleaned entirely from "Ben Hur" - so I know they had wristwatches).

Internal combustion engine?

The Crimean War.

The clam -- James Augustus Henry Murray, "Grandfather of the Clam."

His is one of the more popular tombstones in the St. James of Grimwich Holy Repose cemetary just outside of London, though the piles of greasy fried tribute can get a bit smelly in the summer months. I echo Lonely Planet's recommendation to visit only in the colder months.

On the off chance that BT doesn't mean the clam thing, I'll take another whack with "time machine," to which I'll tack my own friendly amendment of "modern science fiction." HG Wells being the only other Victorian gent I can think of just now, and his table manners were a bit suspect, I understand.

Neither your bivalve-mongering nor your speculative-fiction speculations will bring you closer to victory, my friend.

The internal combustion engine is a savvy guess, but wrong. The Crimean War is an hilarious jape, and of course not correct either.

The submarine.

The thermometer.

The hydroelectric dam.

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The coffee break.

The late fee.

Neither the dam nor the sub: perhaps, Jonathan, you were thinking of a previous question?

Oh, and nope x 3...

The bicycle?

The packaging technique that employs: a box that holds three heavy books; a little drawer; and a magnifying glass?

The sense of plight?

Soren -- a good guess, in the right period, but nope.

Bootsy -- that innovation was originally conceived of by Ayn Rand, for the special unabridged version of Atlas Shrugged.

Arthur Wing Pinero and his Dancing Chickpeas?

Wait, I was close! Okay.... anomie, maybe? Something peculiar to our post-industrial world that has driven us from each other and made is a culture of autistics and sociopaths and people with sad clowny faces?

Or did you mean the bicycle? In that case, is it that funny two-person pumping platform for railroad silent comedy scenes?

I refuse to commit to any you-were-close statements. But your creative hypothesis about "anomie" is as wide of the mark as it is clever.

And no, it's not handcars.

Well who *did* invent the clam, Mr. Smart Guy?

L. Ron Hubbard.

I thought he invented the Internet. At least, that's what they told us at the Dianetics workshop.

the disposable condom?

Victorian gent-vention, victorian gent-vention. . .

The Fuzzy Navel

The steamboat, willie.

Pinochle

Shirt studs

Studly shirts

Advertising jingles

Dealer incentives

Polyphony

The double-take

Two dozen wrongs don't make a right.

The daguerotype

Crank

the fried snickers bar

I could so use one of those about now.

the fervently whispered prayer of a truly desperate atheist?

Aha! Eureka!
The BABY SHOWER!?!?!

OK, it's getting a bit out of hand here...

Clue -- Murray's credit toward this invention has to do with a demonstration in 1857 that he made to the (much younger) acquaintance, involving some halfpennies and discs of zinc. The lesson thus imparted was, it might be said, important to the younger man's intellectual development.

The electric battery.

Volta invented the battery (at least in one form), around the close of the 18th century.

The Oreo.

The electric motor.

Three half-penny soccer.

The vending machine.

the alloy nickel

The telephone.

Ah, yes, I remember the tune, "Song of the Volta Boatman." Or maybe Volga.

Ah am flummoxed.

The electromagnet?

He proved that you really can clean your pocket change with coca-cola!

About the vending machine -- Dominican monks are credited with inventing the first of these devices, a clockwork affair which allowed pilgrims to deposit twelve groats and collect in the slot below an individually wrapped fragment of the skeleton of St. Feblius, a nearsighted missionary who was martyred by trampling when he attempted to convert a herd of moose. The machine, constructed out of wood that had been used in the bludgeoning of heathens in a 1385 get-out-the-heathens campaign, was located in a mule depot along a popular pilgrimage route between Lourdes and Weeki Wachee Springs.

Now, on to serious matters -- we have a winner. Boxjam enters late and brushes aside the competition, for "the telephone" is what we were looking for. Murray was introduced to the son of his friend Alexander Melville Bell, a professor of elocution who invented a system called "Visible Speech." Murry gave young Alexander Graham a lesson in the mysterious properties of electrical current. After his invention of the telephone, the younger Bell presented Murray with an early prototype of the telephone, which languished in the editor's attic and was, it is surmised, subsequently accidentally destroyed by troops quartered in the house during World War I.

Meatloaf.

It's true - he also inspired the invention of meatloaf, and thus is considered the great-grandfather of Spam.