___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Distant Writing A History of the Telegraph Companies in Britain between 1838 and 1868 © Steven Roberts 2006 - 2012 ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS l. Glossary 327 Chapter Page m. Love’s Telegraph 329 Introduction 3 n. Perceptions of the Telegraph Companies 329 1. Cooke & Wheatstone 4 o. Sources 331 2. The Electric Telegraph Company 14 p. Index to Web Illustrations 336 3. Competitors and Allies 71 List of Tables British Electric Telegraph Company 1. Growth of the Railways 1800-1850 13 English & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company 2. Cooke & Wheatstone’s Business 1845 15 European Telegraph Company 3. The Telegraph and the Railways 1846 16 Submarine Telegraph Company 4. The Telegraph and the Railways 1847 21 Electric Telegraph Company of Ireland 5. The Telegraph and the Railways 1852 38 Irish Sub-Marine Telegraph Company 6. Statistics on the Telegraphs in the International Telegraph Company United Kingdom 1852 47 British & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company 7. Electric Telegraph Co – Four Years of London District Telegraph Company Growth 1851 - 1854 51 United Kingdom Electric Telegraph Company 8. The Telegraph and the Railways 1854 52 Bonelli’s Electric Telegraph Company 9. Electric Telegraph Co – Station Staffing Economic Telegraph Company and Total of Employees 1854 54 Reuter’s Telegram Company 10. Electric Telegraph Co – Growth 1850 – 1859 56 Great Northern Telegraph Company 11. Electric Telegraph Co - Profits 1850 – 1859 59 Indo-European Telegraph Company 12. Electric Telegraph Co - Growth in Message Other active companies Traffic 1851 - 1859 60 4. The Universal Telegraph 126 13. Electric Telegraph Co – Message rates, The Universal Private Telegraph Company revenue sources, circuit revenues 62 5. Bain 159 14. Electric Telegraph Co – System 6. Non-Competitors 172 Development 1850 – 1868 68 Company and individual failures 15. English & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Co - 7. How the Companies worked 184 Miles of Line 1853 77 8. What the Companies charged 204 16. Submarine Telegraph Co - 9. The Companies and the News 209 Message Traffic to Europe 1852 – 1856 81 10. The Companies and the Weather 218 17. Submarine Telegraph Co - 11. The Companies Abroad 220 Cables laid and durability 1863 83 12. The Companies’ Foreign Operations 235 18. British & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Co - 13. Railway Signal Telegraphy 1838-68 241 Growth 1857 – 1859 90 14. The Telegraph at War 1854-68 246 19. The Telegraph in 1859 & 1861 94 15. Technical Detail 253 20. London District Telegraph Co – 16. Finale 282 Growth 1860 – 1868 106 17. Telegraph Stations 1862 287 21. London District Telegraph Co - Telegraph Company Stamps 18. 291 Income - Expenditure 1861-1868 107 The Rest of the World 19. 293 22. United Kingdom Electric Telegraph Co – 20. Appendices Growth 1861 - 1865 111 a. A List of Telegraph Companies 1838-68 297 23. The Final Reckoning – the Telegraph b. Domestic Telegraph Companies 1868 298 and the Railways 1868 125 c. Addresses 299 24. Bain’s I & V Alphabet or Code 168 d. Domestic and Foreign Cables 302 25. Electric Telegraph Co - Station Staff 1860 186 e. Personalities 302 26. Telegraphic Apparatus in a Station 189 f. Telegraphic Suppliers 315 27. Electric Telegraph Co – District Staff 1860 190 g. Special Acts of Parliament 320 28. Employment in the Telegraph Industry 1861 191 h. Royal Charters 322 29. Postage Rates for a Letter 1838 205 i. Government Acts affecting telegraphy 322 30. Electric Telegraph Co – Average Message j. Significant Patents 324 Costs 1850 - 1864 207 k. Legal Context, Company & Patent Law 326 31. Deutsch-Oesterreichischen Steven Roberts, the writer, can be contacted by email at [email protected] 2 Distant Writing Telegraphenverein 222 Now of trade in wane or prime, 32. Cable Company Share Prices 1861-1868 229 Now of safe or sunken ships, 33. The Cable Companies 1870 234 Now the murderer outstrips, 34. Message Prices in Europe 1854 235 Now it warns of failing breath, 35. Submarine Telegraph Co in Europe 236 Strikes or stays the stroke of death. 36. Classified List of Electric Telegraph Patents 255 Sing who will of Orphean Lyre, 37. Electric Telegraph Co – Instruments 1860 258 Our the wonder working wire! 38. Cooke’s Telegraph Costs 1838 and 1843 259 Now what stirring news it brings, 39. Electric Telegraph Co - Codes 1854 262 Plots of emperors and kings, 40. Highton’s Single-Needle Code 1853 268 Or of people grown to strength, 41. Henley’s Two-Needle Code 1855 269 Rising from their knees at length; 42. Electric Telegraph Co - Material Costs 1864 281 These to win a state – or school; 43. Telegraph Company Share Prices 1861-68 283 Those for flight or stronger rule. All that nations dare or feel, 44. Telegraph in Britain 1868 286 All that serves the commonweal, __________________________ All that tells of government, Miscellany On the wondrous impulse sent, The Electric Telegraph, Anon. 1851 2 Marks how bold Inventions’ flight That singular and ingenus elecktricle inwention 19 Makes the widest realms unite. The Most Wonderful Thing, Victoria R, 1851 37 It can fetters break or bind, The Moving Fire, Anon. 1854 47 Foster or betray the mind, Electric Telegraphs of the United Kingdom 1857 55 Urge to war, incite to peace, The Complete Letter Writer, Mr Punch 1847 126 Toil impel, or bid it cease. The Universal Telegraph, A Wynter 1862 128 Sing who will of Orphean lyre, The Universal Telegraph & Mr Reuter 1861 134 Ours the wonder working wire! Mr Holmes’ Artillery, 1864 138 Speak the word, and think the thought, Bain’s Electric Clock Showroom 169 Quick ‘tis as with lightning caught, Bain’s British Patents 171 Over – under- lands or seas, Bain’s United States Patents 171 To the far antipodes. The Small Print, a message form 1855 188 Now o’er cities thronged with men, The Telegraph Song, G Leybourne c. 1860 197 Forest now or lonely glen, Telegram or Telegraph? 1857 198 Now where busy commerce broods, Humbug from ‘The Times’ 210 Now in wildest solitudes; The Subscription News-Room, 1848 211 Now where Christian temples stand, The Telegraph Newspaper 1864 214 Now in far Pagan land. Who is Rooter? 1859 217 Here again as soon as gone, Smart Cyrus & the Electric Medal, 1867 234 Making all the earth as one. Moscow speaks at twelve o’clock London reads ere noon the shock, THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH Seems it not a feat sublime – Anonymous, 1851 Intellect hath conquer’d Time! Sing who will of Orphean lyre, Hark, the warning needles click, Our the wonder working wire. Hither – thither – clear and quick Flash all ignorance away, Swinging lightly too and fro, Knowledge seeks the freest play; Tidings from afar they show, Flash sincerity of speech, While the patient watcher reads Noblest aims to all who teach; As the rapid movement leads. Flash till bigotry be dumb, He who guides their speaking play Deed instead of doctrine come, Stands a thousand miles away. Flash to all who truly strive, Sing who will of Orphean lyre, Hopes that keep the heart alive; Ours the wonder working wire! Flash real sentiments of worth, Eloquent, though all unheard, Merits claims to rank with Birth, Swiftly speeds the secret word, Flash till Power shall learn the Right, Light or dark or foul or fair, Flash till Reason conquer Might, Still a message prompt to bear: Flash resolve to every mind, None can read it on the way, Manhood flash to all mankind. None its unseen transit stay, Sing who will of Orphean lyre, Now it comes in sentence brief, Our the wonder working wire. Now it tells of loss and grief, Now of sorrow, now of mirth, These verses were published in “Electric Communica- Now a wedding, now a birth, tion” in ‘Chambers’s Papers for the People’, Volume IX, Now of cunning, now of crime, by William & Robert Chambers, Edinburgh, 1851 A History of the Telegraph Companies in Britain between 1838 and 1868 © Steven Roberts 2006 - 2012 3 Distant Writing even affected time itself. But it was oddly peripheral to the individual. It was an invisible revolution, with little PREFACE or no disruption to most people’s environment or even Distant Writing is intended to be a chronology of the to their purse. growth and performance of all of the domestic public telegraph companies formed in Britain from 1838 to And it just happened. In Britain there was no central 1868, as well as of their associated cable companies. In guiding force, no political will, no tax, no regulation or addition, their working practices are dealt with in some overweening administration. Instead there was a veri- detail; as is the electrical technology that is inextricably table jungle of inventors and scientists who competed and unavoidably linked to their development. for capital to implement their ideas for something that only they understood. The early histories of railway signalling, cipher ma- chines, blasting machines, burglar alarms, all connected The electric telegraph was part of a long process of dis- with the electric telegraph, are also included. covery and development dating at least from the turn of the century driven by academics. Scholars such as As this is the story of the telegraph companies, with the Volta, Ampere, Oersted, Schweigger, Gauss, Weber, main emphasis on the domestic companies, history, as Steinheil, Schilling, Ohm, Wheatstone, Daniell, Faraday far as they are concerned, ends in 1870. The subsequent and Henry (and others in many countries) all contrib- workings of the telegraphs by the Post Office and of uted elements to understanding the magical, and, so post-1870 concerns such as the Exchange Telegraph far, unimagined, power of electricity. Company are not dealt with. If cover of the heroic cable companies of the 1860s and 1870s appears cursory that Using these discoveries a number of inventors or rather is because they have been effectively dealt with else- ‘adapters’ appeared, taking this new knowledge, trans- where by others more qualified.