Electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom
Telegraph usage increased enormously under the Post Office, but it was never as cheap as the postal service, and growing competition from the telephone reduced its market share.
[5] The relay's importance was it allowed telegraph transmissions over long distances that would otherwise require operators at periodic intermediate stations to read and retransmit the message.
By the time they arrived on the scene, the ETC had agreements with most railways, which gave them exclusive use of the wayleaves, shutting out their competitors from the most economical way of building a telegraph network.
[81] In 1858, the UKTC laid a cable from Newbiggin to Jutland, Denmark, which was extended to Russia giving the UK direct telegraph access to North European and Scandinavian countries.
[109] Pender, with a consortium including Thomas Brassey and Daniel Gooch, bought the SS Great Eastern, a huge, failing passenger ship built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Gutta-percha production was near-monopolised by the India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company, by then a subsidiary of Telcon, at their 15-acre (6.1 ha) site in Silvertown.
Newall was prone to fall out with his customers and was often involved in litigation resulting in the company slowly moving away from the telegraph cable business.
[120] After the Red Sea failure, the government no longer provided subsidies or guarantees and left it to private companies to assume the risk of new ventures entirely.
[121] Getting a telegraph connection to India was a priority for the government after the Indian Mutiny of 1857; the urgent telegram requesting assistance had taken forty days to reach London.
A connection to India was finally achieved in 1864 after the Indian government had laid a new cable made by W. T. Henley from Karachi to Fao, Iraq, and the using overland routes.
The problem this causes for telegraphy is that adjacent pulses smear into each other, an effect called intersymbol interference by modern engineers, and if severe enough the message cannot be read.
Thinking he could solve the problem by using a higher voltage, telegraph engineer Wildman Whitehouse only succeeded in permanently damaging the cable, making it unusable.
[145] The mirror galvanometer designed by Lord Kelvin made it easier to read weak signals,[146] and larger cables with thicker insulation had less retardation.
[158] The ability of the telegraph was first brought to the attention of a wider public on 6 August 1844 when The Times reported the birth of Alfred Ernest Albert to Queen Victoria only 40 minutes after it was announced.
He believed a flat rate of one shilling (5p) for 20 words regardless of distance would encourage wider use of the telegraph, which would lead to more intensive usage of lines and provide the economic case for building new ones.
[167] In 1865, Lord Stanley the postmaster general, came out in favour of nationalisation with Post Office reformer Frank Ives Scudamore leading the campaign.
State control in continental countries, according to Scudamore, ensured a more rational and convenient distribution of offices and cheaper rates would lead to greater telegraph use.
In fact, growth temporarily went backwards that year because of a great snowstorm in January, which had damaged every above ground line within a 50-mile (80 km) radius of London; the rooftop system of the District was put out of action entirely.
[209] The situation was not helped when in 1883, against the wishes of the government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Childers, parliament, under pressure from business groups, called for the minimum charge on inland telegrams be reduced to sixpence (2.5p).
The Post Office granted similar licenses for local stock exchanges in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin.
The UTC, which held all the telephone instrument patents, further claimed that Gower-Bell, by selling to the Post Office, were in breach of their license which forbade them to set up their own exchanges.
[242] Just a few hours after the declaration of war on 4 August 1914, CS Alert cut the German cables in the English Channel, almost completely isolating Germany from the rest of the world.
This was particularly important for international traffic sent over long, expensive submarine cables,[249] and much more effective than the common practise of telegram style—heavily abbreviated messaging using the minimum number of words.
[263] The teleprinter was invented in the United States in 1915, but the Post Office did not adopt it until 1922, after a British firm, Creed & Company, began producing a similar machine in 1921.
[267] Between 1929 and 1935, on the recommendation of a committee set up by Postmaster General William Mitchell-Thomson in 1927,[268] Creed teleprinters replaced the old Morse and Baudot equipment without waiting for it to reach end of life.
[272] The pre-war decline was halted briefly during World War I, but usage started falling again in 1920 when the minimum charge for inland telegrams doubled to one shilling (5p).
Walks eroded the speed advantage of the telegraph over the post, although the time between them was still usually very short; the postal service was cheaper and could guarantee next-day delivery almost anywhere in the British Isles, which for most purposes was good enough.
[281] Enemy action caused disruption to the British telegraph system both domestically and in the imperial network worldwide, but communication was largely maintained.
The resistance of the British forces in Egypt to first the Italians, then Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps played an important part in winning the war, and it was vital to maintain a telegraph connection.
[285] Repeated price rises by successive postmasters general, Ness Edwards and Ernest Marples, in an attempt to keep the deficit under control only made the situation worse by driving traffic down even further.
