Electric Telegraph Company

Last updated

Part of a document showing the company seal Electric Telegraph Company document.JPG
Part of a document showing the company seal
1854 stamps of the Electric Telegraph Company Electric Telegraph Company stamps 1854.jpg
1854 stamps of the Electric Telegraph Company
An Electric & International Telegraph Company telegram and envelope, 28 July 1868 Electric & International Telegraph Company telegram 28 July 1868.jpg
An Electric & International Telegraph Company telegram and envelope, 28 July 1868

The Electric Telegraph Company (ETC) was a British telegraph company founded in 1846 by William Fothergill Cooke and John Ricardo. It was the world's first public telegraph company. The equipment used was the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, an electrical telegraph developed a few years earlier in collaboration with Charles Wheatstone. The system had been taken up by several railway companies for signalling purposes, but in forming the company Cooke intended to open up the technology to the public at large.

Contents

The ETC had a monopoly of electrical telegraphy until the formation of the Magnetic Telegraph Company (commonly called the Magnetic) who used a different system which did not infringe the ETC's patents. The Magnetic became the chief rival of the ETC and the two of them dominated the market even after further companies entered the field.

The ETC was heavily involved in laying submarine telegraph cables, including lines to the Netherlands, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. It operated the world's first specialised cable-laying ship, the Monarch. A private line was laid for Queen Victoria on the Isle of Wight. The company was nationalised in 1870 along with other British telegraph companies, and its assets were taken over by the General Post Office.

Formation

The Electric Telegraph Company was the world's first public telegraph company, founded in the United Kingdom in 1846 by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and John Lewis Ricardo, MP for Stoke-on-Trent, [1] with Cromwell F. Varley as chief engineer. [2] Its headquarters was in Founders Court, Lothbury, behind the Bank of England. [3] This was the first company formed for the specific purpose of providing a telegraph service to the public. Besides Cooke and Ricardo, the original shareholders were railway engineer George Parker Bidder with the largest holding, Benjamin Hawes, Thomas Boulton, and three other members of the Ricardo family; Samson, Albert, and Frederick. [4]

Up to this point telegraph lines had been laid mostly in conjunction with railway companies, and Cooke had been a leading figure in convincing them of its benefits. However, these systems were all for the exclusive use of the railway company concerned, mostly for signalling purposes, until 1843 when Cooke extended the Great Western Railway's telegraph on to Slough at his own expense, at which point he acquired the right to open it to the public. [5] Railway telegraphy continued to be an important part of the company's business with expenditure on the railways peaking in 1847–48. [6] This focus on the railways was reflected in the directors and major shareholders being dominated by people associated with railway construction. Additional railway people who had become involved by 1849 included Samuel Morton Peto, Thomas Brassey, Robert Stephenson (of Rocket fame and who was chairman of the company in 1857–58), Joseph Paxton, and Richard Till, a director of several railway companies. [7]

The collaboration between Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in developing the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph was not a happy one, degenerating into a bitter dispute over who had invented the telegraph. As a result, the company was formed without Wheatstone (although he claimed he had been offered the post of scientific adviser). [8] At creation the company purchased all the patents Cooke and Wheatstone had obtained to date in building the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph. [9] It also obtained the important patent for the electric relay from Edward Davy for £600. The relay allowed telegraph signals weakened over a long distance to be renewed and retransmitted onward. [10]

Early years

The company was not immediately hugely profitable, and shares were more or less worthless. [11] In 1846 it won a concession from Belgium for telegraph lines covering the whole country. The company installed a line from Brussels to Antwerp but the traffic was light (mainly stock exchange business) and the company decided to return its concession to the Belgian Government in 1850. In 1848, after a dispute with the Great Western over an engine the ETC was alleged to have damaged, the telegraph line from Paddington to Slough was removed, although the railway company continued to use the telegraph at the Box Tunnel. [12]

The setback with the Great Western did not slow the growth of the telegraph along railway lines, and these continued to be the main source of revenue. By 1848 the company had telegraph lines along half of the railway lines then open, some 1,800 miles, and continued to make deals with more railway companies after that. These included in 1851 a new contract with Great Western which was extending its line to Exeter and Plymouth and by 1852 the ETC had installed a line that ran from London, past Slough, as far as Bristol. These contracts usually gave the company exclusive rights to install telegraph lines. This gave the company a significant advantage over competitors when other companies entered the market. [13]

Other areas of growth were in the supply of news to newspapers, and contracts with stock exchanges. However, general use by the public was retarded by the high cost of sending a message. [14] By 1855 this situation was changing. The ETC now had over 5,200 miles of line and sent nearly three-quarters of a million messages that year. The growth, together with competitors coming on to the market, drove down prices. ETC's maximum charge for an inland telegram (over 100 miles) fell from ten shillings in 1851 to four shillings in 1855. [15]

By 1859, growth required the company to relocate its London central office to Great Bell Alley, Moorgate, but retaining the Founders Court site as a public office. The Moorgate office was arranged over three floors and a large number of men and boys were recruited on an accelerating rate of pay. [16] The company also employed a significant number of women from a higher social class as telegraphists operating the Wheatstone needle instruments. They were paid less and they had to leave if they married. A notable early employee was Maria Craig who became a supervisor. [16] The portion of Great Bell Alley east of Moorgate Street was later renamed Telegraph Street in recognition of the importance of the company at 11–14 Telegraph Street. [17] The site is now occupied by The Telegraph pub. [18]

Government reserved powers

In the Act of Parliament establishing the company, the government reserved the right to take over the resources of the ETC in times of national emergency. This it did in 1848 in response to Chartist agitation. [19] Chartism was a working-class movement for democratic reform. One of the main aims was to achieve the vote for all men over twenty-one. [20] In April 1848, the Chartists organised a large demonstration at Kennington Common and presented a petition signed by millions. [21] The government, fearing an insurrection, used its control of the ETC telegraph to disrupt Chartist communication. [22]

Competitors

The first competitor to emerge was the British Electric Telegraph Company (BETC), formed in 1849 by Henry Highton and his brother Edward. [23] The ETC had a policy of suppressing competitors by buying up rival patents. This it had done to Highton when he patented a gold-leaf telegraph instrument. [24] However, Highton now proposed a telegraph with a different system. Even worse for the ETC, in 1850 Parliament passed an Act giving it the right to force the railways to allow the BETC to construct a telegraph for government use between Liverpool and London. [25] The ETC tried to oppose the government Bill but without success. [26]

A more serious rival came in 1851 with the formation of the English and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company (later renamed the British and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company and usually just called the Magnetic). The Magnetic also used a non-infringing system, generating the telegraph pulses electromagnetically by the operator's own motion of working the equipment handles. [27] The Magnetic got around the ETC's dominance of rail wayleaves by using buried cables along highways, [28] a problem that had hindered the BETC and eventually led to its takeover by the Magnetic. [29] Further, it had an exclusive agreement with the Submarine Telegraph Company who had laid the first cable to France and was busily laying more cables to other continental countries. [30] The Magnetic also beat the ETC in getting the first cable to Ireland in 1853. [31] For a while then, the Magnetic had shut the ETC out of international business. The ETC was keen to correct this situation and started laying its own submarine cables. [32]

Other companies came on to the market, but ETC remained by far the largest of them with the Magnetic second. The ETC and the Magnetic so dominated the market that they were virtually a duopoly until nationalisation. [33]

Submarine cables

The Electric Telegraph Company merged with the International Telegraph Company (ITC) in 1854 to become the Electric and International Telegraph Company. The International Telegraph Company had been formed in 1853 for the purpose of establishing a telegraph connection to the Netherlands between Orfordness and Scheveningen using submarine telegraph cables. The concession to lay the cables had originally been granted to the ETC, but the Dutch government objected to the ETC laying landlines on its territory so a separate company, the ITC, was set up to do this. In practice, the ITC was run by ETC staff. [34] It planned to lay four separate cable cores as a diversity scheme against damage from anchors and fishing gear. All four were combined into a single cable in the sea a short distance from landing. The work was begun in 1853 with the ship Monarch, specially purchased and fitted out for the purpose, and completed in 1854. The cable proved to need a great deal of maintenance and was replaced in 1858 by a single, heavier cable made by Glass, Elliot & Co and laid by William Cory. [35]

Monarch

Monarch Monarch (1).png
Monarch

The Monarch was the first ship to be permanently fitted out as a cable ship and operated on a full-time basis by a cable company, although the fitting out for the Netherlands cables was considered temporary. [36] She was a paddle steamer built in 1830 at Thornton-on-Tees with a 130 hp engine. [37] She was the first of a series of cable ships named Monarch. [38]

The cable laying equipment of Monarch was a major step forward compared to the unspecialised ships that had previously been used for cable laying, with sheaves to run the cable out of the hold and a powerful dedicated brake to control the cable running out. However, Monarch did not store the cable in water-filled tanks as was done on future cable ships. The ship could not, therefore, be kept in trim by replacing the cable with water as it was payed out. It was necessary to run out coils of cable alternately from the fore hold and the main hold for this reason. [39]

Besides the cables to the Netherlands, Monarch laid several cables around Britain in its first year. One of these was a cable across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. The purpose of this cable was to provide a connection to Osborne House, the summer residence of Queen Victoria. [40]

A number of improvements were made to Monarch over the years and its gear became the prototype for future cable ships. A cable picking-up machine was soon fitted with a drum that could be driven by both steam engine and manual winching, designed by the company engineer, Frederick Charles Webb. In 1857, draw-off gear was fitted to avoid crew having to hold the cable taught by hand, and water-cooled brakes were fitted in 1863. [41]

The ship was frequently chartered to other companies like the Submarine Telegraph Company and the Magnetic for cable work. The first charter was to R.S. Newall and Company to recover an abandoned cable in the Irish Sea. Newall had made this cable for the Magnetic and a failed attempt to lay it from Portpatrick in Scotland to Donaghadee in Ireland was made in 1852. Newall temporarily installed its own picking-up machine as Webb's had not yet been fitted. [42]

After nationalisation in 1870, Monarch irreparably broke down on her first cable mission for the General Post Office (GPO). She was then relegated to a coal hulk. [43]

Ireland

The chief competitor to the company, the Magnetic, had succeeded in providing the first connection to Ireland in 1853 on the Portpatrick–Donaghadee route. [44] The ETC was keen to establish its own connection. In September 1854 Monarch attempted to lay a lightweight cable from Holyhead in Wales to Howth in Ireland. This attempt was a failure, as had previous attempts on both routes with lightweight cable. In June 1855 Monarch tried again, but this time with a heavier cable made by Newall. This attempt was successful, the cable being to a similar design to the one Newall had made for the successful Magnetic cable. [45]

Another cable was laid to Ireland in 1862, this time from Wexford in Ireland to Abermawr in Wales. The cable was made by Glass, Elliot & Co and laid by Berwick. [46]

Channel Islands

A subsidiary company, the Channel Islands Telegraph Company was formed in 1857 for the purpose of providing telegraph to the Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney. The main cable was made by Newall and laid by Elba between Weymouth and Alderney in August 1858. The cable required numerous repairs due to the rocky coast of Alderney and the tidal race between Portland Bill and the Isle of Portland. The main section was finally abandoned as a maintenance liability shortly after September 1860. [47]

Isle of Man

A subsidiary company, the Isle of Man Electric Telegraph Company was formed in 1859 for the purpose of providing telegraph to the Isle of Man. The cable was made by Glass, Elliot & Co and laid by Resolute from Whitehaven. [48]

Nationalisation

The company was nationalised by the British government in 1870 under the Telegraph Act 1868 along with most other British telegraph companies. [49] The Telegraph Act 1870 extended the 1868 Act to include the Isle of Man Electric Telegraph Company and the Jersey and Guernsey Telegraph Company, but excluded the Submarine Telegraph Company and other companies which exclusively operated international cables. [50]

The Electric Telegraph Company formed the largest component of the resulting state monopoly run by the GPO. [51] In 1969 Post Office Telecommunications was made a distinct department of the Post Office, [52] and in 1981 it was separated entirely from the Post Office as British Telecom. [53] In 1984, British Telecom was privatised [54] and from 1991 traded as BT. [55]

Equipment

The primary system initially used by the company was the two-needle and one-needle Cooke and Wheatstone telegraphs. Needle telegraphs continued to be used throughout the company's existence, but printing telegraphs were also in use by the 1850s. From 1867, the ETC started to use the Wheatstone automatic duplex system. This device sent messages at an extremely fast rate from text that had been prerecorded on paper punched tape. Its advantage was that it could make maximum use of a telegraph line. This had a great economic advantage on busy long-distance lines where traffic capacity was limited by the speed of the operator. To increase traffic it would otherwise have been necessary to install expensive additional lines and employ additional operators. [56]

In 1854 the ETC installed a pneumatic tube system between its London central office and the London Stock Exchange using underground pipes. This system was later extended to other major company offices in London. Systems were also installed in Liverpool (1864), Birmingham (1865), and Manchester (1865). [57]

Historical documents

Records of the Electric Telegraph Company (33 volumes), 1846–1872, the International Telegraph Company (5 volumes), 1852–1858 and the Electric and International Telegraph Company (62 volumes), [1852]–1905 are held by BT Archives.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electrical telegraph</span> Early system for transmitting text over wires

Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems called telegraphs, that were devised to communicate text messages quicker than physical transportation. Electrical telegraphy can be considered to be the first example of electrical engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telegraphy</span> Long distance transmission of text

Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pigeon post is not. Ancient signalling systems, although sometimes quite extensive and sophisticated as in China, were generally not capable of transmitting arbitrary text messages. Possible messages were fixed and predetermined and such systems are thus not true telegraphs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Wheatstone</span> British scientist and inventor

Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS FRSE, was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope, and the Playfair cipher. However, Wheatstone is best known for his contributions in the development of the Wheatstone bridge, originally invented by Samuel Hunter Christie, which is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance, and as a major figure in the development of telegraphy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transatlantic telegraph cable</span> Decommissioned undersea telegraph cable

Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data are still carried on other transatlantic telecommunications cables. The first cable was laid in the 1850s from Valentia Island off the west coast of Ireland to Bay of Bulls, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. The first communications occurred on August 16th 1858, but the line speed was poor, and efforts to improve it caused the cable to fail after three weeks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Davy</span>

Edward Davy was an English physician, scientist, and inventor who played a prominent role in the development of telegraphy, and invented an electric relay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cable layer</span> Ship type

A cable layer or cable ship is a deep-sea vessel designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications, for electric power transmission, military, or other purposes. Cable ships are distinguished by large cable sheaves for guiding cable over bow or stern or both. Bow sheaves, some very large, were characteristic of all cable ships in the past, but newer ships are tending toward having stern sheaves only, as seen in the photo of CS Cable Innovator at the Port of Astoria on this page. The names of cable ships are often preceded by "C.S." as in CS Long Lines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Fothergill Cooke</span> 19th-century telegraph pioneer

Sir William Fothergill Cooke was an English inventor. He was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837. Together with John Ricardo he founded the Electric Telegraph Company, the world's first public telegraph company, in 1846. He was knighted in 1869.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Tilston Bright</span> British engineer

Sir Charles Tilston Bright was a British electrical engineer who oversaw the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858, for which work he was knighted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siemens Brothers</span> Business in London, England

Siemens Brothers and Company Limited was an electrical engineering design and manufacturing business in London, England. It was first established as a branch in 1858 by a brother of the founder of the German electrical engineering firm Siemens & Halske. The principal works were at Woolwich where cables and light-current electrical apparatus were produced from 1863 until 1968. The site between the Thames Barrier and Woolwich Dockyard has retained several buildings of historic interest. New works were built at Stafford in 1903 and Dalston in 1908.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Stirling Newall</span> Scottish engineer and astronomer

Robert Stirling Newall FRS FRAS was a Scottish engineer and astronomer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph</span> Early electrical telegraph system dating from the 1830s

The Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph was an early electrical telegraph system dating from the 1830s invented by English inventor William Fothergill Cooke and English scientist Charles Wheatstone. It was a form of needle telegraph, and the first telegraph system to be put into commercial service. The receiver consisted of a number of needles which could be moved by electromagnetic coils to point to letters on a board. This feature was liked by early users who were unwilling to learn codes, and employers who did not want to invest in staff training.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Needle telegraph</span> Type of electrical telegraph

A needle telegraph is an electrical telegraph that uses indicating needles moved electromagnetically as its means of displaying messages. It is one of the two main types of electromagnetic telegraph, the other being the armature system, as exemplified by the telegraph of Samuel Morse in the United States. Needle telegraphs were widely used in Europe and the British Empire during the nineteenth century.

CS <i>Alert</i> (1890) Cable-laying ship that had a significant role in World War I

CS Alert, or HMTS Alert, was a cable-laying ship that had a significant role in World War I. She was launched in 1871 for the Submarine Telegraph Company with the name The Lady Carmichael. In 1890 the ship was acquired by the General Post Office (GPO) as part of the nationalisation of the British telegraph network. At the outbreak of World War I, Alert was immediately dispatched to cut German telegraph cables in the English Channel, seriously damaging Germany's ability to securely communicate with the rest of the world. Alert was taken out of service as a cable ship in 1915 but her cable-handling gear was retained for fitting on her replacement. After the war, she worked as a merchant ship under various names, finally being wrecked at Redcar under the name Norham in 1932.

The Submarine Telegraph Company was a British company which laid and operated submarine telegraph cables.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gutta Percha Company</span> English rubber manufacturer

The Gutta Percha Company was an English company formed in 1845 to make a variety of products from the recently introduced natural rubber gutta-percha. Unlike other natural rubbers, this material was thermoplastic allowing it to be easily moulded. Nothing else like it was available to manufacturing until well into the twentieth century when synthetic plastics were developed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company</span>

The British and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company was founded by John Brett in 1850. The Magnetic was the principal competitor to the largest telegraph company in the United Kingdom, the Electric Telegraph Company. The Magnetic was the leading company in Ireland, while the Electric was the leading company in mainland Britain. Between them, they dominated the market until the telegraph was nationalised in 1870.

CS<i> Monarch</i> List of ships with the same or similar names

Five cable-laying ships have been named CS Monarch, or, after the nationalisation of British telegraph companies, HMTS Monarch:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foy–Breguet telegraph</span> Type of electrical telegraph

The Foy–Breguet telegraph, also called the French telegraph, was an electrical telegraph of the needle telegraph type developed by Louis-François-Clement Breguet and Alphonse Foy in the 1840s for use in France. The system used two-needle instruments that presented a display using the same code as that on the optical telegraph of Claude Chappe. The Chappe telegraph was extensively used in France by the government, so this arrangement was appealing to them as it meant there was no need to retrain operators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom</span> History of electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom

In the nineteenth century, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had the world's first commercial telegraph company. British telegraphy dominated international telecommunications well into the twentieth. Telegraphy is the sending of textual messages by human operators using symbolic codes. Electrical telegraphy used conducting wires to send messages, often incorporating a telegram service to deliver the telegraphed communication from the telegraph office. This is distinct from optical telegraphy that preceded it and the radiotelegraphy that followed. Though Francis Ronalds first demonstrated a working telegraph over a substantial distance in 1816, he was unable to put it into practical use. Starting in 1836, William Fothergill Cooke, with the scientific assistance of Charles Wheatstone, developed the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph. The needle telegraph instrument suggested by Wheatstone, the battery invented by John Frederic Daniell, and the relay invented by Edward Davy were important components of this system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earth-return telegraph</span> Telegraphy transmission method

Earth-return telegraph is the system whereby the return path for the electric current of a telegraph circuit is provided by connection to the earth through an earth electrode. Using earth return saves a great deal of money on installation costs since it halves the amount of wire that is required, with a corresponding saving on the labour required to string it. The benefits of doing this were not immediately noticed by telegraph pioneers, but it rapidly became the norm after the first earth-return telegraph was put into service by Carl August von Steinheil in 1838.

References

  1. ↑ Haigh, p. 195
  2. ↑ Bright, p. 246
  3. ↑ Roberts, ch. 4
  4. ↑ Kieve, p. 48
  5. ↑ Kieve, pp. 31–32
  6. ↑ Kieve, pp. 44–45
  7. ↑ Kieve, p. 50
  8. ↑ Kieve, pp. 40–44
  9. ↑ Roberts, ch. 4
  10. ↑ Kieve, p. 24
  11. ↑ Kieve, p. 49
  12. ↑ Kieve, p. 48
  13. ↑ Kieve, pp. 49, 52
  14. ↑ Kieve, p. 49
  15. ↑ Kieve, p. 53
  16. 1 2 Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (2004-09-23), "Maria Craig" , The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/56280 , retrieved 2023-08-05
  17. ↑ Roberts, ch. 4
  18. ↑ East London & City Pub History, CAMRA, accessed and archived 16 February 2019.
  19. ↑ Kieve, p. 50
  20. ↑ Chase, p. 174
  21. ↑ Chase, pp. 298–303
  22. ↑ Kieve, p. 50
  23. ↑ Kieve, p. 50
  24. ↑ Roberts, ch. 4
  25. ↑ Shaffner, p. 296
  26. ↑ Kieve, pp. 50–51
  27. ↑ Beauchamp, p. 77
  28. ↑ Bright, p. 5
  29. ↑ Roberts, ch. 5
  30. ↑ Bright & Bright, pp. 73–74
  31. ↑ Ash, p. 22
  32. ↑ Kieve, p. 52
  33. ↑ Hills, p. 22
  34. ↑ Kieve, p. 52
  35. ↑ Haigh, p. 195
  36. ↑ Haigh, p. 195
  37. ↑ Haigh, p. 196
  38. ↑ Haigh, pp. 204, 206, 211
  39. ↑ Haigh, p. 196
  40. ↑ Haigh, p. 195
  41. ↑ Haigh, p. 197
  42. ↑ Haigh, pp. 196–197
  43. ↑ Haigh, p. 198
  44. ↑ Bright, p. 14
  45. ↑ Haigh, p. 195
  46. ↑ Haigh, p. 196
  47. ↑ Haigh, pp. 195–196
  48. ↑ Haigh, p. 196
  49. ↑ Haigh, p. 198
  50. ↑ Kieve, pp. 149–159, 160
  51. ↑ Beauchamp, p. 74
  52. ↑ Pitt, p. 154
  53. ↑ Welch & Frémond, p. 16
  54. ↑ Welch & Frémond, p. 16
  55. ↑ Walley, p. 219
  56. ↑ Kieve, pp. 81–82
  57. ↑ Kieve, p. 82

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.