Development of the Anglo-Indian telegraph

Development of the Anglo-Indian telegraph

Between the end ofthe Indian Mutiny in 1857 and 1870, four Anglo-Indian telegraph routes were constructed. Thejrst of these, via the R e d Sea, was abandoned in 1861 leaving the

British and Indian Governments to honour theivguaranteed annual payments of 4%% on the capital invested. T h e second, via the Persian GuE was completed in 1865 but proved d@cult to operate without English-speaking telegraphists through the Ottoman Empire. T v e third, via

Siemens' Russian netwoifk and north Persia and employing English operators, reduced the mean timefor telegrams to less than one day, but was rapidly in competition with a submarine cable jiom Cornwall to Bombay via the Mediterranean.J M. Adams, agrandson ofone ofthe

Anglo-Indian telegraphists, reviews some contemporary records.

by J. NI. Adams

Perspective The first route

T he influence of the British Empire has endowed the British with many lasting benefits, in particular the dominance of the English language. This was pre-empted by

the extent of Britannic jurisdiction-encompassing some 25% of the nineteenth century world population-and was secured by the sinews of international telegraphy. An important

A prospectus for a 'European and Indian Junction Telegraph Company' was issued in July 1855 and a 'Red Sea Telegraph Company' was floated in August 1857. In view of the wildness of the Asian terrain and of the lawlessness of the tribal population, a submarine route either through the Red Sea or through the Persian Gulf was favoured, each of these having its

ardent supporters. One proposal was for a

ENGINEERING SCIENCE AND EDUCATION JOURNAL AUGUST 1997

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that insufficient allowance was made fbr reducing the stress in the cable lying across sea-bed ravines, and the lack of investigation of experience with the Atlantic cable, whose success at the time was very doubtful. The 1400 miles of cable from Suez to Aden, laid in three sections, failed repeatedly. Parts of the cable with low insulation were initially either repaired or replaced, but the line soon became unworkable. In places the armouring wires were found to be entirely corroded away, although in other parts the c;ible was totally protected h-om any corrosion by shells and weed.

Just before the final failure of that section in 1861, the 1700 miles of submarine line frorn Karachi-also laid in three sections-was connected at Aden so that through workmg from Egypt was pomible for a few hours, but a circuit to Europe was still not possible because the projected Malta to Alexandria link had not been completed. The ocean line from Karachi also faded about a month later. Attempts in later years to restore through workmg, using these early sub-sea cables, failed entirely. Accordingly, the Treasury and the Inman Government were left to honour the guaranteed A36 000 annual payments.

The second route

By the 1850s most European cities and major ports had been connected by the railway, an obvious and favourite route for telegraph poles. Ways across and out

of Europe could therefore already be obtained via Marseilles, Brindisi, Constantinople, or Odessa and round the north of the Black Sea. Of these land routes, for diplomatic reasons, the 1800 miles through the Ottoman Empire-from the Austrian border to the Gulf coast at what is now Kuwait-was preferred. This avoided entry into Persia, felt to be under Russian influence (see Fig. 1).

Turkey was not responsive to approaches from a private company, such as the British, European and Indian Junction Telegraph Company, and resolved to undertake the work on its own behalf. In 1857, as a friendly State, it offered one through circuit to the British Government with liberty to appoint British agents, workmen and &rectors. In other words, the line would presumably be built by Britain and owned by Turkey The result was that at the time of the abortive attempt to establish a link via the Red Sea, there was an alternative line under construction through Constantinople down to the Persian Gulf.

The erection of posts and wires had started fitfully. Colonel Biddulph, the officer placed in charge, commenced active work in 1858 but resigned the following year after only about 300 mi les had been completed. The work continued under the superintendence of three non-commissioned officers fiom the Artillery: Mr. Carthew and the brothers MacCallum. By 1860, mainly due to their s k d md determination, the line had progressed across both

Fig. 1 The Ottoman Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century


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mountain and desert as far as Baghdad. A detailed survey of the state of the project was then

undertaken by Sir Arnold Kemball, the British Consul at Baghdad. Reporting in May 1861, he found a number of shortcomings with regard to the condition

be straightened up after the winter unless the base had been packed with stone.

The patented Siemens iron posts proved to be more suitable in every respect. Not only were they termite- proof, but the cast-iron base section was fixed to a

of the line, although the materials and construction were generally good. Many insulators were broken or missing-hardly surprising in remote and featureless areas where porcelain pots on top of a pole inevitably attract target practice. In the British tradition of compromise, he recommended that the heads of local tribes, their relatives and ‘influential adherents’, none ofwhoin recognised any ~.

ruling power, should be eniployed as paid guards or watchmen.

Kemball also found that the cable between Constan- tinople and Scutari, after three separate repairs, had been finally abandoned and Fig. 2 Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Stewart,

Director-General of t he Indo-European telegraph’ telegrams between Europe and Asia could only be passed aa-oss the Bosporus by boat.

In 1862 Patrick Stewart, a young and talented member of the Bengal Engineers who had been trained at the Military College of the East India Company, was appointed as Managing Director of the entire enterprise. He was 30 years old, but withm two years of starting work he had the whole line to India in a workable state. In the classic words of a colleague: ‘The reins once committed to his hands, he dis- entangled them and drove his enterprise to success.’ Unfortunately he did not enjoy good health and died just before his 33rd birthday. At least three memorials were raised to honour Col. Patrick Stewart (see Fig. 2) after hs death.

Most of his work was administrative and, realising the vulnerability of a single route to the sea, he obtained agreement to an overland connection from Baghdad to Tehran in Persia with an extension from there to Bushire half way down the Gulf. With advice from leading engineers of the day, he ensured a far higher specification for the cables through the Persian Gulf and across the Arabian Sea.

The line down through the whole of Turkey proceeded apparently without troubling about such legal niceties as wayleaves. It had simply wound its way through mountain post tracks and marched to the horizon across the deserts. Poles, wire and insulators were brought to suitable depots along the way by shp, mule and camel. Most of the poles were of poplar, which had a limited life even when impregnated with copper sulphate. In sandy ground many would need to

wrought-iron sole plate. For this reason the post did not need to be sunk into the ground more than two feet eight inches, whereas the wooden poles needed to be set at least four feet down, thereby costing for erection alone three times more than for the iron posts. The height of the iron posts could be increased as required by an upper section which was wedged into the cast iron base tube. A contemporary dustration is shown in Fig. 3.

As has been mentioned, the marine cable was a much improved design compared with the previous and now useless cable laid in the Red Sea. The copper core had been selected for its

conductivity (which at that time could vary by as much as 60%), and was coated with four layers of gutta- percha, followed by four layers of an asphalt-shca compound. On this came a hemp serving, then twelve iron armouring wires followed by two more rolled-on coats of the asphalt, tar and silica mixture. The finished diameter was 1% inches.

Colonel Stewart had decided to have the cable laid from sailing vessels. These being towed by steamers supplied by the Indian navy. By this means coal for fuel &d not need to be purchased, nor carried with the cable, and the overall costs would be far less. Manufacture commenced in February 1863 and the total of about 1500 miles, weighing nearly 6000 tons, was completed by the middle of October. Five sailing vessels were fitted with cylindrical iron tanks which could be kept flooded and the finished cable, whose design and manufacture had been closely supervised by Sir Charles Bright and Mr. Latimer Clark, was loaded from Mr. Henley’s works at North Woolwich. The vessels were then dxpatched on their 15 000 mile journeys at intervals so as to arrive at Bombay, hopefully, at the correct times. All achieved safe passage, the voyages varying in length between 90 and 140 days.

The main difficulty attendant on paying out cable from a ship towed by a steamer is that it is not possible to reduce the speed of the towed ship quickly in case of an emergency For safety reasons, the tow line will be far too long for verbal exchanges, but rapid exchange of signals is essential. The problem was successfully overcome by use of a bull-eye lanip and


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shutter-probably the first time that naval flag signals were replaced by the forerunner of the Aldis

Once the first ship had paid out all her cable the most difficult part of the undertaking then followed, namely the transfer of all the men, stores and appliances concerning the cable from one ship to the other in the open sea. The project, however, was pursued to a

lamp.

successful conclusion, the Indian navy having carefully surveyed the ocean floor along the whole route, so enabling due allowances to be made in laying the cable over submarine crevices and cliffs.

The vigilance of the Indian navy along this coast had also reduced the prevalence of piracy, but the coastal population remained fierce and truculent. On entering the narrow straits to the Persian Gulf itself, conciliation was tried by inviting all local sheikhs on board. The number of sh’eikhs and chief men who made their appearance was remarkable. It was at first thought that the whole population were sheikhs until it was realised that each legitimate sheikh, having undergone his audience and received his present, would send his boatman dressed up in his clothes.

While travelling up the Gulf it proved possible to pay out at 5% to 6 knots, just sufficiently in excess of the rate of the shp to allow the cable to accommodate itself to the irregularities of the bottom. The electrical insulation of the line as a whole was of course the critical parameter- nervously monitored throughout, as it had been since manufacture. Spurious reachngs naturally were a cause of concern. These arose from earth currents producing

‘April 6 1864: [on the matter of dragging the cable ashore]. . .They sat down whispering in small groups. The matter was very urgent; the splicers had come down with their tools, men available for the work were drawn together on the spot: I agreed to give the rupee on completion of this particular duty. Instantly a marvellous activity was evident in the crowd. They stripped themselves half naked, sprang rather than

ran the d e or more to the well known spot, regardless of mud and waves, quickly found the cable’s end and brought in their charge with a war dance. I handed it to the splicers, and thus was Turkish Arabia linked to Bombay.’

However, due to difficulties with Bedouin tribes who pillaged stores and clothing on the Turkish section south of Baghdad, and the Persian authority’s indfference on the line being erected from Baghdad to Tehran, delays persisted for a further nine months. Finally on 27th January 1865, at a point near the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris, telegrams despatched to England in one drection and to Bombay in the other announced that through-working was possible for the first time.

The initial euphoria was somewhat short-lived. When the line opened, the Daily News of 10th March 1865 reported:

‘The first telegram from Bombay comes on us, in spite of all our familiarity with the wondrous agency by which it is affected, with a shock of almost incredulous amazement.’

Three years later a Select Committee of the

system was:

Y

voltages between the two ends of the line, ’ Fig. and the movement of the ship. The cable, being coiled in the hold, was subiected to a

Siemens patent iron telegraph pole House of Commons decided that the

generated voltage as the shp rolled in the earth’s magnetic field.

The junction of the overland hne with the submarine cable from Karachi was effected at a place now called Al Faw at the mouth of the Shatt al Arab. To drag the shore end of the cable across the shallow mud flats, 500 or 600 Arabs were required. The &ary of one of the Naval officers whose duty it was to get t h s work done reveals something of the local culture in the rmd nineteenth century:

‘March 31 1864: [one man]. ..asked me for some arsenic.. .“for a fiiend who needs it greatly: he wishes to die”. I endeavoured to impress upon him that such a notion was wrong, andl the sooner his friend got over it the better. “Ah but”, he continued with a smile, not in the least murderous or even malicious, “I wish him to &e. He has a beautiful wife.” ’

‘thoroughly inefficient and that to a great extent it was at the mercy in Asia of a set of incapable and unimprovable Arabs, Turks and barbarians.’

At the Mansion House a meeting chaired by the Lord Mayor of London stated that what they wanted to see was a line under one control-and that British control-and free from end to end of all political or Asiatic or European complication. The Saturday Review at ths time wrote:

‘No one in his senses looked for anything but costly datory and blundering workmg fiom such an undertaking; though scarcely any could have fully realised the extent ofmischiefwhich confhcting systems-and above all, Turkish apathy and imbecility-could effect.’


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Table 1: Average time taken by telegrams to or from India

17.21 10.40 7.22 5.10 9.44 1.55 0.36 0.25 0.1 3

Such derogatory language was generated by the knowledge that the messages had to pass through the hands of so many telegraph clerks; that is to say each one had to be written out by hand and retransmitted twelve to fourteen times. And it was assumed that most ofthese telegraphists and clerks were totally ignorant of English. In fact there were few Turks and no Arabs employed in the transmission of the Indian traffic. The delays and corruptions occurring were due mainly to the technical limitations of the system itself.

Nevertheless the 1800 d e s of Turhsh land line was a sigruficant problem as regards general communication and getting meaningless signals deciphered. Through- out history, Turkish languages have been written in a variety of scripts, derived 6om the Rumc, the Syriac, the Arabic and finally-but not until the 20th century-the Latin alphabets. In neighbouring countries Turlush might also be written by Armenians, Greeks and Jews in each of their three different alphabets. The alternative routes, via Russia to Tehran,

or via the Medterranean and the Red Sea, began to look increasingly attractive.

The service was inadequate for two simple reasons: the telegrams took too long-days rather than hours (see Table 1)-and, if a received telegram was un- intelhgiblC, it was usually impossible to trace the original message back through the intervening tele- graphsts. Traffic fiom private messages remained at an unexpectedly low level, but this was mainly for a different reason: the cost of a telegram was &5 for up to twenty words.

Mter the death of Colonel Stewart, the alternative line, whch traversed the Zagros mountains in Persia between Tehran and the Gulf at Bushre, ceased to operate. Thus was partly due to a contretemps between Turhsh and Persian staff and partly due to wilful damage by a powerful local clan. The Persian telegraph authority sent its Royal Executioner to the area to cut off any heads the British inspector might indcate.

Through the mountains, spans of exceptional length had been cut down and the labour ofre-establishing the line over very difficult ground had to be repeated. Even when the line had been technically restored, the telegraphists across the Turco-Persian border remained 'unhelphl', with through-worlung affected by national antipathes. The 1200 d e line through Persia thus proved to be both difficult to construct and to maintain. Not only was it partly mountainous, the climate in winter was extremely cold and in summer intensely hot. In addition the line continued to be exposed to the depredations of wandering tribes over whom the Persian Government, although despotic, had little effective control. The type of environment in

Fig. 4 An impression of the telegraph line in Persia between Tehran and Bushires


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Fig. 5 Another impression of the Tehran-Bushire telegraph line5

the mountains behind Bushire on the Persian Gulf is shown in Figs. 4 and 5.

Within a year a second circuit, to be worked entirely by British staff, was in hand-no mean task, as is evident from a despatch ofMajor R. M. Smith RE, the engineer in charge, part of which stated:

‘Owing to the white ants a large proportion of the existing poles must be changed.. .\Wood fit for posts is very scarce in Persia, the distances are great and wheel carriage is unknown. Upwards of 3000 mule loads of material from England must be hspatched from Bushire, some of them to a distance of 1000 miles.’

The third route

For the first three years, the time for transmission of telegrams to and from India showed little sign of improvement, remaining at about five days on average. The route lay via Vienna, Belgrade. Constantinople, Baghdad and Bombay, from where all main cities in I d a were in reach, includmg Galle at the south of Ceylon. From here, messages for the Far East and Austraha were collected by ship and Far Eastern news was telegraphed from Galle to Europe.

The speed and accuracy of transmission could not be improved due to the diverse nationahties at the repeater stations en route. In 1868 it was agreed that arrange- ments should be set up for a line dedicated to Anglo- Indan and Euro-Indian traffic and operated entirely by British telegraphists. The alternative routes were through Russia and Persia, so avoiding the Ottoman Empire entirely, or across the Medterranean and down

the Red Sea. The latter route involved some 3000 d e s more submarine cable than the former through the Persian Gulf. This was a significant factor if the line was to be commercially viable. A submarine cable weighing four tons per nautical mile, with one conductor, would cost four times as much per mile as a 2-circuit land line. Running costs were also higher because faults and loss of circuit took longer to rectify and steamships had to be kept available.

On the other hand, no rent or royalties would be demanded for cables under the sea, whereas land lines through sovereign states would attract wayleaves proportional to their length and traffic. Furthermore, renewed armed confhct with Russia was considered to be not unlikely so that such a route to India would be unduly vulnerable. The final decision was dominated by the firm of Siemens and Halske in Germany, which had built and was operating a successful telegraph system across northern Europe and Russia and by 1867 had one sixth of the Euro-Indian telegraph traffic.

Werner von Siemens was the oldest of eight brothers. In 1847 he and a technician working with him formed a company in Berlin for the manufacture and construction of telegraph systems. The following year they obtained a contract to provide a telegraph link between Berlin and Frankfurt and in 1853 were commissioned to build an extensive network in Russia. By 1855, before there were any railways east of Moscow, Siemens 81 Halske was operating its own system from Berlin through Russia to Odessa and later as far as Tehran. During the Crimean War, telegraph apparatus made in Berlin, with consecutive serial numbers, was at work in the hostile camps of Sebastopol and Balaclava. The Russian enterprise was


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run by a brother, Karl Siemens, in St Petersburg and an independent British Company, Siemens Bros., was formed under another brother, Wilhelni, who founded and was the first President of the Society of Telegraph Engineers (now the IEE) and was knighted as Sir William Siemens.

Influenced by the success and competence of the Siemens Companies, The Indo-European Telegraph Company was formed in 1868 in Berlin to establish a circuit from London to Tehran via Russia-to be worked by British telegraphists throughout. For this purpose a new line through the Black Sea would be Installed to avoid the unreliable route through the Caucasus Mountains. To meet the expected increase in trafKc, it was felt necessary to duplicate the lines between Tehran and Karachi. Accordingly, a land line from Karachi was extended along the coastal area of Baluchistan to Jask near the mouth of the Persian Gulf; a second submarine cable was laid from Jask, through the Persian Gulf to Bushire, and another, international circuit was installed through Persia to Tehran. These duplications were not without incident.

Having decided to use rubber insulation in place of gutta-percha for the second Gulf cable, it was shipped from Gravesend in the sailing vessels

Problems of a dfferent nature were presented by the construction of the new overland line of over 300 d e s fi-om Inda along the coast of the Arabian Sea. Shortly before its completion, Mr. Walton, the superintendent, reported:

'A body of 25 Europeans and 600 natives passing through this utterly barren country must expect to meet with very great difficulties. Often I have been obliged to prohibit ablutions of any kind and to place guards with drawn swords over dirty puddles.. .the posts being all of iron brought from England were

After be i n g towed clear of Land's End

the Calcuffa collided with a Russian

barge and allowed all 70 miles of cable in her fore tank to run into the sea

Calcutta and Tweed. The forGer, an iron shp of 2083 tons, sailed in January 1869 with 273 d e s of cable. After being towed clear of Land's End she collided with a Russian barque, whch immediately sank with the loss of most of her crew. In order to remain afloat, the Calcutta allowed all the 70 miles of cable in her fore tank to run into the sea. The ship's company then took to the boats in very heavy weather and 33 of the 66 were drowned. The abandoned vessel was towed by HMS Terrible into Plymouth, where she was dry-docked and repaired. The jettisoned cable was recovered by Henleys, the manufacturers, and subsequently sent forward in the refitted Calcutta together with the Tweed, on which demurrage had been paid. The two ships left with their charges of cable in June whde the directors and engineers for the project left some weeks later by the steamer Carnatic on the shorter route through the newly opened Suez Canal. Ths shp became totally wrecked on a coral reef with the loss of 28 of the ship's company and, although the telegraph party was rescued from the reef after the vessel broke up, all instruments and baggage were lost. Ultimately the party arrived in Bombay in September to find the Tweed and Culcuttu had just arrived in harbour.

The two sailing vessels were then towed up the Gulf and the cable laid without undue further difficulties, except that low insulation of the submerged cable was found to reside mainly in the recovered section, which had nearly 200 splices in its 70 mile length.

distributed 1 8 to the -mile and required many camels which were likewise almost entirely supplied with provender from Karachi.. . many deaths are occurring among the natives.'

The temperature was reported to be as high as 156" on the work and 128" under canvas. At some of the camps on the route water had to be brought from distances of 12 to 24 miles.

Over distances of several thousand miles, limitations on the transmission of messages-and hence on the revenue from the capital investment incurred-were found to lie chiefly in the signal delay rather than the signal loss. This delay was

Y

due to the high capacitance of such long circuits, a characteristic much more pronounced with cables than with conductors in air. By connecting eight wires from London to Manchester in series, Faraday found that the delay caused by the underground sections of the circuit amounted to two seconds, time lag being unaffected by the voltage. Speed of transmission through submarine lines could be improved by judicious rapid voltage reversal and by reactance loading to counteract the capacitance effect. On land lines-generally strung over the cross-arms of poles- it was found economic to provide repeater stations every 600 d e s or so.

One of the most remote of these was at the Persian town of Tabriz. Situated upon a plain of dust and stones, it was reached by a journey of some 250 d e s on horseback, over bandit-infested mountain tracks from Rasht, the nearest port on the Caspian Sea.

In 1869, the present writer's grandlather was posted to Tabriz from Haverfordwest as a very young tele- graphist. The journey to take up this appointment involved 7 weeks at the Siemens &Halske headquarters in Berlin to be trained in the use of the Hughes teleprinting machines. The onward journey to Tabriz then occupied another two months by rad and by sh~p down the Volga and the Caspian Sea to Rasht. During his time away, he kept a daily journal4, parts of which read as follows:


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Fig. 6 Telegraphs to India by 18705

‘Tuesday 4 January 1870: To office today, but not a word, the wire being useless somewhere between this and the Caucasus.

Wednesday 5 January 1870: Today the Russian telegraphists, our predecessors, call to say “goodbye”. Tomorrow they start out upon their cold wretched journey towards St. Petersburg together with two ladies and an infant. We wish them. a safe journey

Thursday 13 January: No work-lines down.

Sunday 27 March 1870: This afternoon, the lines being pedect, I speak with both London and Berlin. The former say “dull”, the latter “bitter cold with sharp wind”. I am delighted to think myself the first to speak with London from Persia.

Wednesday 27 April 1870: Ano’ther bright and lovely day. As I think has already been mentioned, the late Governor being in the habi.t of purveying so called justice, the poorer classes have been great sufferers in consequence and having no money wherewith to purchase protection, are not only obliged to put up with short weight, but also with grossly adulterated bread, which is indeed the staple food. The new Governor, a man I believe raised from a Tabreez secretaryship, is determined to alter

thngs. I hear from my servant-and such news spreads like wildfire-that 20 rowdy Persians were brought up yesterday and that he-“as a comence- ment” the Governor remarked-took from each a limb, hand, eye, ear or teeth as the case might seem to require and that today he made a sudden personal examination of the bakeries, catchmg three men in the act of adulterating bread with earth and chalk. They were at once put into their own ovens and roasted &ve-(such is the law here).’

By the autumn of the following year, Alexander Adams had evidently had enough:

‘Saturday 2 September 1871: As the Company will do nothing for me and take no notice whatever of correspondence, I follow the example of the whole staff and resign, heartily glad to finish with so leaky and mismanaged a concern.. .An inadequate salary at any time, starvation, discomfort, cholera, typhus, pest and fever, badly served by the Directors and treated as boys by those in authority here, it is no wonder the whole of us scrape together sufficient courage to wash our hands of the affair and “Hurrah for the auld country”.’

On his return to England he was appointed to the staff of the Engineer in Chief at the Central Telegraph


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Office in London and eventually retired as Assistant Controller.

In addition to the Indo-European Telegraph Company’s line, at the end of 1869 there were now a number of alternative circuits (see Fig. 6). The original line through Turkey consisted of eight possible routes through Europe to Constantinople; &om here there was a double land line to Al Faw on the GuX, with an alternative line across to Tehran &om Baghdad and on

The Great Eastern left England for Bombay on 6th November 1869 and arrived, via the Cape of Good Hope, on 21st January 1870. On 8th March her cable had all been paid out without an accident or hitch of any kind and by 26th March the Suez-Bombay line was open for business. Meanwhile a subsidiary company had arranged to complete a submarine connection &om Cornwall to Egypt via Gibraltar, so that the entire system was independent of any

to Bushire further down the Gulf; another submarine cable ran from Al Faw to Bushire; from Bushire two submarine lines had been laid to Jask at the southern end of the Gulf, and from there an Arabian Sea cable and an alternative land line continued to Karachi. Failures of the marine cables became less frequent, but it sometimes took weeks or months to restore the service interruption. Loss of the land line circuits was far more frequent but could normally be traced and repaired withn hours or days.

The fourth route

To avoid the disadvantages of

reverting to a monopoly, a

convention of European telegraph

companies agreed to maintain the tariff

at €4-1 7s The railway mania of 1845 was followed some 15 years later by the era of telegraph mania, when uncounted companies for the setting up of new telegraph services were promoted in quick succession, and almost as rapidly amalgamated. There was already a wide choice ofwires between Europe and India, yet in spite of the well known hazards from its uncharted and perhaps unchartable coral banks, the Red Sea was still regarded by many as a desirable route to the East and the Far East.

With this objective, a Company with the grand title of The British-Indan Submarine Telegraph Company was formed, nearly A400 000 being subscribed even before its prospectus had been published. The promoters included John Pender, whose interest in Inda began as a Manchester cotton merchant and who became the founder of Cable & Wireless. In January 1869 Pender’s Telegraph Construction and Main- tenance Company (Telcon) undertook to complete the new line from Suez to Bombay by April of the following year.

Such confidence was not without reason. In the 18 years since telegrams had first been possible between London and Paris, the manufacture, laying and utilisation of undersea cables had changed from a frontier of science to an established technology. In particular, the directors knew they would have the use of a ship which could carry 2375 nautical d e s of cable in her tanks and the equivalent amount of coal in her bunkers, a ship moreover whch had not only laid the first successful link between Europe and America but, while in the Atlantic, had found, raised and repaired an older, useless cable.

Continental authority or orga- nisation.

The immedate effect of the three competing routes was to bring the AS charge down to A2-17s. The public were at liberty to drect their cables by any of the three routes, marlung their telegrams by the words ‘via Turkey’, ‘via Indo’, or ‘via Suez’, no charge being made for this choice. As a result, the two overland routes were faced with immechate ruin. In order to avoid the &sadvantages of reverting to a monopoly, a convention of European telegraph companies was held in Berne in 1871, where it was agreed to maintain the tariff at A4-17s. Subsequently, and within a very short time, the telegraph

between Europe and India became an important section of the lines to Australia and the Far East. By January 1871, a station had been established in Singapore and in October of the following year it was possible to transmit telegrams between England and Austraha entirely by submarine cable.

Ac kn ow I edg men t

I am greatly indebted to the Archive Department of the IEE for mahng available many of the references used in the preparation of this article.

References

1 T h e Illustrated London News, 8th July 1865 2 Timer $India, 1866 3 GISBORNE, E: ‘Telegraphic communication with India’

4 ADAMS, A. J. S.: Manuscript Journals from 17th July 1869

5 GOLDSCHMID, Sir E J.: ‘Telegraph and travel’ (MacmiUan,

6 Jburndl offhe Society $Arts, 10th May 1878, pp.522-533 7 VON SIEMENS, E. Werner: ‘Personal recollections’, trans-

lated by W C. CouplandPubl. (Asher & Co., London, 1893) 8 BARTY-KING, H.: ‘Girdle round the earth’ (Heinemann,

London, 1979)

(Edward Stanford, London, 1868)

to 18th October 1871

London, 1874)

0 IEE: 1997

Mr. Adams is an IEE Fellow.


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Development of the Anglo-Indian telegraph

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