Distant Writing

A History of the Telegraph Companies in Britain between 1838 and 1868
Home
Introduction
Cooke & Wheatstone
The Electric Telegraph Company
Competitors & Allies
Wheatstone
The Universal Telegraph
Bain
Non Competitors
How the Companies Worked
What the Companies Charged
The Companies and the News
The Companies and the Weather
The Companies and Foreign Traffic
The Companies' Foreign Operations
Railway Signal Telegraphy 1838-68
Telegraph at War 1854-68
Technical Detail
Finale
Instrument Gallery
Telegraph Map 1860
Appendices
Sources
Downloads
Contact
Legal
WELCOME TO DISTANT WRITING 

Electric Telegraphy in Britain

 
Distant Writing is a chronology of the growth and performance of all of the domestic public telegraph companies formed in Britain from 1838 to 1868, as well as of their associated cable companies. It tries to put their remarkable, largely unrecognised,  achievements and developments into the context of the time; and to demonstrate - surprisingly- how their enterprise is once again reflected in the way we communicate now. A plan for an electric  telegraph in every home was just one of the schemes successfully introduced by the companies - until the Government took over...
 
Their working practices, employment policies, pricing structures, their influence on time and weather, and their relationships with the news media  during the period are dealt with in some detail; as is the electrical technology that is inextricably and unavoidably linked to their development.
 
Readers will find a great many rare contemporary engravings of most of the instruments and many telegraphic features of the period throughout the text and in the Instrument Gallery.
 
It is hoped that all of this detail will encourage others to investigate and publish works regarding the electric telegraph in the nineteenth century; the innovation of which led directly to our electronic age.
 
Periculum privatum utilitas publica!
 
June 27, 2009
 

 
What is there to discover in Distant Writing?
 

 

Introduction describing the state of personal communications before electric telegraphy; as well as -

 

Cooke & Wheatstone - A view of the creators of Britain's telegraph, their  initial slow progress introducing the electric telegraph, their first lines, the  innovation electric railway signalling for safety, and their fraught relationship in the 1830s and 1840s;

 

The Electric Telegraph Company  - A comprehensive history of the first company formed to offer the public access to telegraphy, from when it was launched in 1846, its early crises and eventual domination in its domestic market, its contribution to the success of the world-wide cable network after it had become the Electric & International Telegraph Company in 1855, and its efforts to create the world’s first global communications network from London to Calcutta in the 1850s and 1860s, dating from the original scheme for a cross Channel cable in 1847 to planning with its Russian allies to connect London with New York overland by way of Siberia, Russian America, Canada and California!  

 

Competitors and Allies   - The history of the many other organisations in telegraphy, including the British Electric Telegraph Company, the English & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company, the European Telegraph Company, the Submarine Telegraph Company, the Electric Telegraph Company of Ireland, the Irish Sub-Marine Telegraph Company, the International Telegraph Company, the British & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company, the London District Telegraph Company, the United Kingdom Electric Telegraph Company, Bonelli’s Electric Telegraph Company, the Economic Telegraph Company, Reuter’s Telegram Company, the Great Northern Telegraph Company, the Indo-European Telegraph Company and the many others that worked public telegraphs in Britain, whose stories have never before been told;

 

Wheatstone - A summary of the subsequent work of Charles Wheatstone in the 1850s and 1860s  in creating the new electrical age, giving access to the home and to the world; 

 

The Universal Telegraph - The very first history of domestic and private telegraphy and the revolutionary instrument perfected by Wheatstone in 1859 which succeeded in networking individuals in the cities of Britain with desk-top instruments and desk-top printers during the 1860s with his Universal Private Telegraph Company and its competitors; as well as the Universal company's distribution of his 'unbreakable' cipher machine, the cryptograph, used by the Queen's household, the government and the police; 

 

Bain - A new perspective on the achievements and disappointments of Alexander Bain in telegraphy during the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s, accompanied by engravings of his early instruments;

 

Non-Competitors  - A summary of the many individuals and unsuccessful firms involved in public telegraphy, optical and electrical, who tried and failed, including the Liverpool & Holyhead Telegraph, the General Telegraph Association, the Marine Telegraph Association, the General Telegraph Company, the Universal Electric Telegraph Company, and the Globe Telegraph Company;

 

How the Companies worked - The story in some detail of their relationship with the public, their marketing, their staff, systems and processes, including the introduction of electric banking” in the 1860s;

 

What the Companies charged - An explanation of how their complex pricing evolved and eventually simplified, and their price fixing cartel;

 

The Companies and the News - A précis of the story the first electronic  news-gathering organisation of 1848, created by the Electric Telegraph Company, its competitors,  the enmity of the press to telegraphy and the arrival of Reuter;

 

The Companies and the Weather - The incidental story of how the telegraph enabled weather forecasting;

 

The Companies and Foreign Traffic - A summary of how the domestic telegraph companies and the new cable companies eventually conquered the oceans, especially the route to India, and the East India Company's lines ;

 

The Companies’ Foreign Operations - An explanation of their overseas pricing and their technical problems;

 

Railway Signal Telegraphy – A brief, illustrated history of the earliest  innovations in electric train control between the years 1838 and 1868;

 

Telegraph at War - The story of the first field telegraph, designed by the Electric Telegraph Company for the campaign in the Crimea in 1854; the unique Crimea submarine cable connecting the front with London; and the subsequent use of the telegraph by the British Army and other countries at war until 1868;

 

Technical Detail - A mass of detail that attempts to explain the technology, public and private, used by each telegraph company between 1836 and 1868, and connected devices such as batteries, blasting machines, and burglar and fire alarms;

 

Finale - In which the successes of the companies and the economic failures of the government telegraphs are briefly analysed.

 

Instrument Gallery - In addition to many pictures and engravings in the chapters there is a host of  illustrations, taken from patents, catalogues, books and journals of the 1840s, 1850s, 1860s and 1870s, of most of the telegraphic instruments mentioned in the text

 

Telegraph Map - showing the Telegraphs of Europe” in 1860, a downloadable, very detailed map published by the Electric & International Telegraph Company  with all of its continental connections just before the worldwide expansion of wires and cables

 

Appendices - Comprising a List of Telegraph Companies from 1838 to 1868; the Domestic Telegraph Companies in 1868; the Addresses and Locations of Companies; a List of Domestic and Foreign Cables; Biographies of Company Personalities; a List of Telegraphic Suppliers of the 1850s and 1860s; Special Acts of Parliament that authorised the companies; Royal Charters obtained by the companies; Government Acts affecting telegraphy;  Significant Telegraphic Patents; America & Europe in Comparison; the Legal Context; a Glossary of Nineteenth Century Telegraphic Terms; concluding with a little melodrama, “Electric Sparks”, set within an electric telegraph office...

 


 

Some generous recommendations...
 

 

“I have found material on your site invaluable. It’s a wonderful resource. Thank you very much for creating and maintaining it.” -  Susan W. Brenner, Professor of Law & Technology, University of Dayton School of Law

 

“I have been reading your web-pages with interest. I am sure that they meet the long felt requirement to get that part of communications history into what is a very readable and useful perspective.” - Dr Allan Green, Research Fellow, Porthcurno Telegraph Museum

 

“Happened upon ‘Distant Writing’ just now, and am impressed.” - John McVey, Professor, Monserrat College of Art, Massachusetts

 

“I’m just writing to extend my heartfelt gratitude to you for putting together this absolutely wonderful resource!” – Dr R J Noakes, lecturer in science and technology, University of Exeter

 

“Your web site is delightful, congratulations” - Dr Jon Peddie, President, Jon Peddie Research, California

 

“I have been immensely impressed by your masterly ‘Distant Writing’ ” - Sir George White Bt., F.S.A., Keeper, The Clockmakers’ Museum, London

 


 

The Most Wonderful Thing 

 

“We went to the Exhibition and had the electric telegraph show explained and demonstrated before us. It is the most wonderful thing and the boy who works it does so with the greatest of ease and rapidity. Messages were sent out to Manchester, Edinburgh, &c., and answers received in a few seconds – truly marvellous!”

 

Victoria R                                                                                                                  July 9, 1851

 


History is for sharing

 

Distant Writing was launched on August 25, 2006 as part of the Atlantic Cable website; it graduated to its own internet address in April 2007. Many thanks are due from the writer to Bill Burns of Atlantic Cable for his generous support and continuing advice in so many aspects of researching the history of telegraphy.

 

All who are interested in telegraphy are recommended to his excellent, authoritative and hugely compendious Atlantic Cable website:

 

www.atlantic-cable.com

 

Distant Writing is published on the web as a free resource for those interested in early communications technology, in  the incredibly rapid development of telegraphy and its effects in the mid-nineteenth century.

 

The text and pictures are available as PDF files from the Downloads page.

  

Your Contributions

Comments, questions and corrections  are truly welcome; please email:

stevenroberts@distantwriting.co.uk

 


About the Writer

 

As someone who has worked in communications for many years I have been fascinated by how man and technology have interacted and then how history and organisation have developed in similar cycles over the centuries. It seems that Nothing is New, it is only accellerated!

 

I started to write about the electric telegraph about ten years ago when I assembled a pile of notebooks with small pieces of information drawn from nineteenth century newspapers and magazines. To this I have added many more nuggets of information drawn from works republished on the internet - appropriately the great-grandchild of the electric telegraph.

 

In 2006 inspired (and annoyed) by the  lack of historical perspective on the importance of the public telegraph companies in Britain and their contribution to technology, as much as by many errors of fact, I finally got round to putting that research into a single resource. This is the result.

 

I hope that you enjoy, as well as learn!

 

Steven Roberts, London 2009