Telegraph
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Old and modern communication towers & masts in the Telegraph area | |
Location within Isles of Scilly | |
Civil parish |
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Unitary authority | |
Ceremonial county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | ISLES OF SCILLY |
Postcode district | TR21 |
Dialling code | 01720 |
Police | Devon and Cornwall |
Fire | Isles of Scilly |
Ambulance | South Western |
UK Parliament | |
Telegraph (Cornish : Brebellskrif) [1] is a settlement on St Mary's, the largest of the Isles of Scilly, England.
Telegraph is located in the north west of the island and is the highest point on St Mary's and in the Isles of Scilly, at 51 metres (167 ft) above sea level. [2] The settlement takes its name from Telegraph Tower, situated at the summit of the hill.
In the late 1860s, Mr. Buxton of Scilly attempted to persuade the Post Office to install a telegraph cable to the Isles of Scilly. However, the Post Office declined and it was decided that a private company should undertake the project. Ashurst, Morris and Company of Old Jewry, London were contracted by the Scilly Islands Telegraph Company. They entered into a contract with Mr. Fenwick of Gateshead (who had been responsible for the first submarine cable between Dover and Calais which was completed on 25 September 1851). The core of the Scilly cable consisted of three copper wires, insulated by india-rubber, and was manufactured by the Silvertown Company. The outer covering was composed of six strands of Manilla hemp, through each of which ran a galvanised iron wire. The cable weight was 17 long hundredweight (860 kg) per mile, with a breaking strain of 3.5 long tons (3,600 kg). 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of each end of the wire was bound with galvanized iron wire, to protect against chafing on rocks, bringing the weight to 4 long tons (4,100 kg) per mile.
On 22 September 1869 the steamer Resolute of Newcastle, arrived at Penzance with the telegraph cable to connect Land’s End to the Isles of Scilly. The cable was 30.5 miles (49.1 km) long without a single splice, and was the first piece of this length that was made. [3] On Saturday 25 September 1869 the steamer Fusilier, under Captain Jacques arrived opposite Mill Bay, a small cover about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of Land’s End. Rockets were used to convey a rope ashore, and the cable on the ship attached to this rope, and hauled ashore to make the land connection at Zawn Reeth. [4] Cable laying was completed by Sunday 26 September 1869 when the cable reached Deep Point, beneath the high lands of Normandy on St Mary’s. [5]
The cable broke in mid 1870 and had to be repaired. The cost of sending a 20 word message from Penzance to the Isles of Scilly was 2s 6d (equivalent to £15.11in 2023). [6] A second cable, manufactured by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company was laid in 1870 allowing messages to be sent or received from any Postal Telegraph Office in the United Kingdom. The cost of sending a 20 word message using this system was an additional 1s (equivalent to £6.04in 2023) [6] per message on top of the Scilly Islands Telegraph Company charge of 2s 6d. On 28 June 1870 a branch was opened to Tresco. [7]
The cable was used initially for shipowners and merchants to communicate with their vessels moored in the Islands, and was also used to send weather observations to the mainland.
The cable service failed in 1876 and the Scilly Islands Telegraph Company did not have the resources to repair it. Eventually the Post Office agreed to purchase and repair it [8] and they took over the assets of the Scilly company on 24 April 1879. The cost of messages was reduced to 1s for the first 20 words, and then 3d for every additional 5 words.
The only golf club on the Isles of Scilly is situated between Telegraph and the coast to the west. The course consists of nine holes, each with two tees. The club was founded in 1904 and is open to visitors. [9]
HM Coastguard had a station at Telegraph until 2017. [10]
McFarland's Down is a linear settlement that grew in the latter half of the 20th century and is to the immediate north of Telegraph. [11]
The Isle of Man has an extensive communications infrastructure consisting of telephone cables, submarine cables, and an array of television and mobile phone transmitters and towers.
Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is 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.
St Mary's is the largest and most populous island of the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago off the southwest coast of Cornwall in England, United Kingdom.
Hugh Town is the largest settlement on the Isles of Scilly and its administrative centre. The town is situated on the island of St Mary's, the largest and most populous island in the archipelago, and is located on a narrow isthmus which joins the peninsula known as the Garrison with the rest of the island.
Porthcurno is a small village covering a small valley and beach on the south coast of Cornwall, England in the United Kingdom. It is the main settlement in a civil and an ecclesiastical parish, both named St Levan, which comprise Porthcurno, diminutive St Levan itself, Trethewey and Treen.
St Ives is a parliamentary constituency covering the western end of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. The constituency has been represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Andrew George, a Lib Dem MP; George previously represented the constituency from 1997 to 2015.
The Isles of Scilly Steamship Company (ISSC) operates the principal shipping service from Penzance, in Cornwall, to the Isles of Scilly, located 28 miles (45 km) to the southwest. It provides a year-round cargo service together with a seasonal passenger service in summer. The name of the company's principal ferry, the Scillonian III, is perhaps better known than that of the company itself.
St Mary's Airport or Isles of Scilly Airport is an airport located 1 nautical mile east of Hugh Town on St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly, to the south west of Cornwall, UK. It is the only fixed-wing airport serving the Isles of Scilly, handling most air traffic to and from the Islands. The airport is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and currently is operated by the Council of the Isles of Scilly.
RMV Scillonian III is a passenger ship based at Penzance in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, run by the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company. She operates the principal ferry service to the Isles of Scilly and is one of only three ships in the world still carrying the status of Royal Mail Ship.
Penzance Heliport is located 0.6 NM northeast of Penzance, Cornwall. The heliport hosts scheduled flights to the Isles of Scilly, with a connection to the railway network at Penzance railway station by a special bus service. The original heliport had a single concrete landing pad, which was 30 m × 30 m, inside a 373 m × 45 m grass strip, 08/26.
The West Cornwall Steam Ship Company was established in 1870 to operate ferry services between Penzance, Cornwall, and the Isles of Scilly. It became the West Cornwall Steamship Company in 1907 and was wound up in 1917.
Bass Point is a headland on the coast of Cornwall, England. It is at the southern tip of the Lizard peninsula, in the civil parish of Landewednack. The headland was a communications centre during the Victorian era, with the Lloyds Signal Station, opened in 1872 for shore to ship communications, and Marconi's experiments with wireless at the Lizard Wireless Station.
Tregarthen's Hotel is a hotel in Hugh Town on St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly.
PS Earl of Arran was a passenger vessel operated by the Ardrossan Steamboat Company from 1860 to 1871 and the West Cornwall Steam Ship Company from 1871 to 1872.
SS Lady of the Isles was a passenger vessel built by Harvey and Company, Hayle for the West Cornwall Steam Ship Company in 1875.
SS Lyonesse was a passenger vessel built for the West Cornwall Steam Ship Company in 1875.
Coastguard’s Lookout Tower, now known as Telegraph Tower, is a Grade II listed structure built around 1814-16 on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly as a Signal station for the Admiralty.
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.
The Orkney and Shetland Islands Telegraph Company provided telegraph services between Caithness, Orkney and Shetland from 1870 until 1876.