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The Electric Telegraph

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The Electric Telegraph To Mark, Karen and Paul CONTENTS page ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS TO 1837 13 Early experiments—Francis Ronalds—Cooke and Wheatstone—successful experiment on the London & Birmingham Railway 2 `THE CORDS THAT HUNG TAWELL' 29 Use on the Great Western and Blackwall railways—the Tawell murder—incorporation of the Electric Tele- graph Company—end of the pioneering stage 3 DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE COMPANIES 46 Early difficulties—rivalry between the Electric and the Magnetic—the telegraph in London—the overhouse system—private telegraphs and the press 4 AN ANALYSIS OF THE TELEGRAPH INDUSTRY TO 1868 73 The inland network—sources of capital—the railway interest—analysis of shareholdings—instruments- working expenses—employment of women—risks of submarine telegraphy—investment rating 5 ACHIEVEMENT IN SUBMARINE TELEGRAPHY I o The first cross-Channel links—the Atlantic cable— links with India—submarine cable maintenance com- panies 6 THE CASE FOR PUBLIC ENTERPRISE 119 Background to the nationalisation debate—public attitudes—the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce— Frank Ives. Scudamore reports—comparison with continental telegraph systems 7 NATIONALISATION 1868 138 Background to the Telegraph Bill 1868—tactics of the 7 8 CONTENTS Page companies—attitudes of the press—the political situa- tion—the Select Committee of 1868—agreement with the companies 8 THE TELEGRAPH ACTS 154 Terms granted to the telegraph and railway companies under the 1868 Act—implications of the 1869 telegraph monopoly 9 THE POST OFFICE TELEGRAPH 176 The period 87o-1914—reorganisation of the system— the first strike within the civil service—Scudamore misappropriates Savings Bank funds—the increasing financial loss 10 TELEGRAPH MONOPOLY AND TELEPHONE DEVELOPMENT 199 The deliberate stunting of the development of the tele- phone following the 188o lawsuit II THE PRESS SUBSIDY 216 Relationship between Post Office and press 187o-1939 —press subsidy stimulates provincial press and press associations 12 USES AND MISUSES 230 Impact on various industries and markets—military applications—the police—firefighting—coastal safety— wireless telegraphy 13 'BETWEEN UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES' 248 Decline of the inland telegram from 1918—the inter- war period—the greetings telegram—World War II— postwar decline—conclusion ABBREVIATIONS 269 NOTES AND REFERENCES 271 CONTENTS 9 page APPENDICES Details of the Post Office calculation of the loss on the press telegram service, 1907 287 Telegraph tariffs and services, 1870-1971 289 BIBLIOGRAPHY 294 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 298 INDEX 299 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plates page x Frank Ives Scudamore, architect of the nationalisation of the inland telegraph service in 1868 97 2 William Fothergill Cooke, primarily responsible for the early development of the electric telegraph in the United Kingdom 97 3 Charles Wheatstone, scientific genius 97 4 Charles Tilston Bright, knighted for his part in the laying of the first Atlantic cable, 1858 97 5 HMS Agamemnon laying the first Atlantic cable, 185 8 98 6 The Great Eastern, laid the Atlantic cable of 1866 98 7 The India Rubber, Gutta Percha & Telegraph works, Silvertown, London, circa 188o 131 8 Telegraphists of the period circa 1865. The employ- ment of women was a significant socio-economic result of telegraph development 132 9 Opening the first London—Paris telegraph circuit, November 18 5z 132 io Some early telegraph instruments 197 Soemmering's water telegraph, 1809; Ronalds' Pithball and Dial Telegraph, 1816 197 12 St Martins-le-Grand, the Central Telegraph Office 197 13 William Cooke's 2-needle telegraph, 1842 198 14 Wheatstone's ABC instrument, patented 1858 198 15 The front page of the Telegraph Act 1868. The first case of the state taking over private commercial assets in the United Kingdom 231 16 Advertisements issued in 1845. One mentioning the arrest of the murderer John Tawell 232 Acknowledgement of Plates Plates t, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, II, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 by courtesy of the Post Office Plate 2, by courtesy of the Institution of Electrical Engineers II I2 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Maps page The telegraph system in London. The London District Telegraph Company network, circa 1861 6o The telegraph network of the Electric & International company in the United Kingdom between 185z and 1868 75 Line Illustrations and Charts House-Top Telegraphs. A cartoon circa 1862 by an un- known artist 57 The Derby Result 186o, by electric telegraph 7o The Telegraph Gallery at the Electric & International company's new offices at Bell Alley, Moorgate Street. Based on an illustration in the Illustrated London News, December 1859. 86 Chart comparing the dividend payments and yield received by investors 1852-68 from the Electric & International Telegraph Company, the London & North Western Railway, and 3+ per cent Consols 95 Chart showing the share prices of the Electric & Inter- national Telegraph Company and the London & North Western Railway, 1852-68 99 The result of a parliamentary division transmitted by electric telegraph, April 1859 123 Cartoon of Frank Ives Scudamore, artist unknown 188 CHAPTER ONE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS TO 1837 The telegraph was the first invention to bring electricity to the service of man, by transforming the methods of communication. Its origins can be traced back long before 1837, when the first `practical' telegraph was patented in England by William Fother- gill Cooke and Professor Charles Wheatstone, but the stimulus necessary for its development was not provided until the expan- sion of the railway network in Britain and the United States in the 183os; the electric telegraph and the railways were to ex- pand together. The need for some means of communication faster, not merely than the horse but than the train itself, became clear. During the eighteenth century many telegraphs were proposed using electricity. Although not wholly understood, attempts were made to utilise the remarkable qualities of this mysterious form of energy. The discovery in 1745 of the Leyden jar gave a great impetus to experimentation. In April 1746 Abbe Nollet transmitted the shock of a jar through a number of Carthusian monks joined together by iron wires in a circle 5,400ft in circum- ference. The contortions of the monks, when the circuit was closed, were accepted as sufficient evidence of the shock having been felt throughout the whole circuit. That these contortions took place simultaneously showed that the time occupied by electricity in traversing the circuit was too small to be per- ceptible.1 Appreciating that electricity would travel almost in- stantaneously along a wire from one point to another, no matter how widely separated, several men attempted to use it for the transmission of information. In 1747 Sir William Watson, a member of the Royal Society, passed electricity through 9,000ft of earth and water on the Thames and through 1o,000ft of wire suspended at Shooters Hill. In 1748 Franklin repeated similar experiments in Philadelphia. In 1749 Du Lac experimented across Lake Geneva.2 However, the frictional or static electricity em- 13 14 ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS TO 1837 ployed in all these early experiments was both fitful and difficult to insulate. Some of these early systems used an alphabetical basis in- dicating every letter by a separate movement or light at the receiver. Such a suggestion was made in an anonymous letter signed `C.M.' published in the Scots Magazine in February 1753.3 This 'expeditious method of conveying intelligence' was based on a separate wire for each letter of the alphabet and was 'otherwise somewhat intricate in its operations'. The author's reason for concealing his identity may have been his fear of being regarded as a magician by his neighbours. However, it seems probable that `C.M.' was Charles Marshall of Paisley, 'a clever man . who could make lightning speak and write upon the wall'.4 Other meth- ods used codes which employed combinations of single signals to distinguish letters. The first method was clear to the uninitiated; the second was more economical in wires and equipment. Between 175o and i800 developments occurred which were to be decisive. As a result of the work of the Italian physicists, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, the battery was invented, supply- ing a gentle, steady and controllable flow of current at modest voltage. Its power was both in the strength of the current and its ability to flow continuously. This enabled certain of the effects of electricity to be clearly observed and applied to practical ends for the first time. Volta, professor of natural philosophy at Padua, communicated his discoveries to the Royal Society in i800. He showed that the source of the electricity in Galvani's experiments was contact between two different metals. Within a matter of months, large electric batteries were being built on Volta's prin- ciple. In Munich S. T. Von Soemmering used an electrolytic battery to send signals which were indicated at the receiving end by the liberation of bubbles of hydrogen from the liquid in which the electrical impulse was discharged. In July 1809 he exhibited a telegraph through z,000ft of cable. The discovery that an electric current flowing through a coil could cause a movement in a magnet suspended nearby, was a great step forward in the understanding of electromagnetism. In Denmark, at the University of Copenhagen, Hans Oersted, experimenting with the current from a battery, discovered a de- ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS TO 1837 1 5 finite relationship between electricity and magnetism. In France, at the Polytechnic School in Paris, Andre Ampere, mathematician and physicist, heard in September 1810 of Oersted's discovery of a magnetic needle being deflected by a voltaic current. He de- veloped the subject, published papers, and showed that magnetic deflection could be produced without magnets by the aid of electricity alone. Meanwhile in Barcelona, out of the mainstream of European science, Francisco Salva employed a multiple-wire scheme.
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