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The La Perouse Cable Station

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The La Perouse Cable Station An end to isolation – the La Perouse Cable Station John Walter Ross Cover photograph: La Perouse Museum (Museums and Galleries of New South Wales website). “Well, Captain Pell, should you ever hear of the telegraph one of these days as the wonder of the world, remember the discovery was made on the good ship Sully” Samuel Morse speaking on landing in the United States in 18321. "No work of greater magnitude or of such vast importance as this knitting of our distant colonies with the rest of our great empire has ever been recorded as having been carried out by one colony without any outside aid whatever." British Prime Minister William Gladstone acknowledging the achievement of completing the undersea cable from Java to Port Darwin in 1871 and the Overland Telegraph line in 18722. Contents Foreword ................................................................................................................................................. 1 Timeline................................................................................................................................................... 3 Electric telegraphy, the Wonder of the Age ........................................................................................... 5 Electricity............................................................................................................................................. 5 The electric telegraph ......................................................................................................................... 5 The “Victorian internet” is built .............................................................................................................. 9 Early submarine cable trials ................................................................................................................ 9 Commercial telegraph cables.............................................................................................................. 9 British dominance and the All Red Line .............................................................................................. 9 Eastern Extension to Australia .......................................................................................................... 10 Cable construction and early problems ............................................................................................ 11 The modern role of submarine cables .............................................................................................. 12 Australia connects to the world ............................................................................................................ 13 Samuel McGowan brings the telegraph to Victoria .......................................................................... 13 Inter-colonial expansion ................................................................................................................... 13 The global telegraph network approaches Australia ........................................................................ 13 The race for an overland telegraph route......................................................................................... 14 Charles Todd builds the Overland Telegraph Line ............................................................................ 15 Fast but very expensive .................................................................................................................... 19 The end of isolation for New Zealand ................................................................................................... 21 The telegraph system in New Zealand .............................................................................................. 21 Planning to connect to the world ..................................................................................................... 22 Schroder’s Mistake becomes Cable Bay ........................................................................................... 22 Another mistake creates the La Perouse terminus .......................................................................... 23 The cable is prepared ........................................................................................................................ 23 New Zealand builds the land line ...................................................................................................... 25 Laying the great cable ....................................................................................................................... 25 Approaching the New Zealand coast ................................................................................................ 27 The final stage of the cable ............................................................................................................... 27 Telegraph connection is established................................................................................................. 27 Life as a cable operator ..................................................................................................................... 29 A permanent Cable Station at La Perouse ............................................................................................ 31 Improvements to the original Cable Station ..................................................................................... 31 The permanent Cable Station ........................................................................................................... 31 Nurses’ quarters for the Coast Hospital ................................................................................................ 33 Smallpox and the Coast..................................................................................................................... 33 The influenza pandemic .................................................................................................................... 34 Nurses’ quarters and Happy Valley ................................................................................................... 36 Housing the troops............................................................................................................................ 37 Salvation Army refuge ........................................................................................................................... 39 Soup, soap and salvation in Australia ............................................................................................... 39 Women’s and children’s refuge ........................................................................................................ 40 Preserving the past – the museum and monuments ............................................................................ 43 A museum to commemorate Laperouse .......................................................................................... 43 Laperouse monument ....................................................................................................................... 43 Father Receveur’s grave ................................................................................................................... 45 Almost a bit of France ....................................................................................................................... 46 The Defence of La Perouse ................................................................................................................... 49 Macquarie Watchtower .................................................................................................................... 49 Bare Island Fort ................................................................................................................................. 51 Aboriginal settlement at La Perouse ..................................................................................................... 55 Acknowledgement of country........................................................................................................... 55 Early settlement and displacement .................................................................................................. 55 The La Perouse Mission Church ........................................................................................................ 56 The Aboriginal Reserve ..................................................................................................................... 57 Far West Children’s holiday camp .................................................................................................... 57 The telegraph moves to Yarra Bay House ............................................................................................. 59 Expansion of the telegraph operation .............................................................................................. 59 The daily operation of a cable station .............................................................................................. 59 Child welfare institutions at Yarra Bay House ...................................................................................... 63 La Perouse Training School for Girls ................................................................................................. 63 Yarra Bay House Truant School ......................................................................................................... 63 Yarra Bay Boys’ Home ....................................................................................................................... 63 Ownership
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