During the course of his life, he attended a commercial academy in Lubeck, the Industrial School at Magdeburg, and the University of Gottingen in 1841. He only spent a year at Gottingen. Wilhelm and his brother Werner worked together on new inventions. They set up a firm of Siemens Brothers and Wilhelm brought inventions over to England to try and spread the new technology and to represent the firm. He made many trips over to England for his inventions. William and Werner worked together on many electrical inventions to benefit society. 

In 1851, Siemens Brothers laid a telegraph cable under the sea from England to France which was the first international telegraph connection. Many more cables were laid down by the firm and a new high electric tension for long distance telegraph lines was also developed by the firm. They saw how good the electrical industry was doing and how good it would be to produce equipment for the industry. Siemens Brothers later joined up with Johann Halske to become the new electrical firm of Siemens and Halske. 

In 1866, Werner Siemens used and applied the dynamo-electrical principle which was based on work done by English physicist Michael Faraday on electricity. This principle was based on the fact that electricity and magnetism could be converted into each other. The Siemens Brothers used this information to come up with superior dynamos to generate electricity with. Others had tried to come up with similar devices but the Siemens Brothers were much better. Siemens and Halske were able to manufacture the first successful electric train ever. This train was exhibited at the Berlin International Exhibition in 1879. 

The company of Siemens and Halske later moved on from telegraphs, dynamos, and railroad equipment into the field of electrical lighting. The Siemens brothers were big contributors to the electrical telegraph and electrical engineering in general. Their contributions have helped us to have all of our electricity powered things today.