Australian Overland Telegraph Line
The Victorian government organised an expedition led by Burke and Wills to cross the continent from Menindee to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1860.
[4] John McDouall Stuart had meanwhile also been endeavouring to cross the continent starting from the northern Flinders Ranges, and was successful on his sixth attempt in 1862.
[6] In 1863 an Order in Council transferred the Northern Territory to South Australia, aiming to secure land for an international telegraph connection.
[4] The telegraph line would comprise more than 30,000 wrought iron poles, insulators, batteries, wire and other equipment, ordered from England.
[12] Todd appointed staff to whom the contractors would be responsible: Explorer, John Ross; Surveyor, William Harvey; Overseer of Works, Northern Territory, William McMinn; Sub-Overseer, R. C. Burton; Operators, James Lawrence Stapleton (murdered 1874 at Barrow Creek) and Andrew Howley.
Charlotte Waters, just north of the South Australian border in the Northern Territory, was surveyed in 1871 by Gilbert McMinn and Richard Knuckey[15] and a repeater station built in 1872.
[16] Darwent & Dalwood, who won the contract for the northern section of 600 miles (970 km), arrived in Port Darwin aboard SS Omeo in September 1870 with 80 men, 80 draught horses, bullocks, equipment and stores.
[22] The undersea cable was finished earlier than expected,[7] with the line from Java reaching Darwin on 18 November 1871 and being connected the following day.
[22] Because of the problems still facing the northern section, the Queensland Superintendent of Telegraphs called for the abandonment of the project, and for the line to connect to the terminal at Burketown, but Todd was adamant and pressed on.
[22] A storm system impacting South and Central Australia caused significant interruptions on the line in January 1872.
[11] Maintenance was an ongoing and mammoth task, with floods often destroying poles, and a range of other incidents disrupting the line.
The line proved an immediate success in opening the Northern Territory; gold discoveries were made in several places along the northern section (in particular Pine Creek), and the repeater stations in the MacDonnell Ranges proved invaluable starting points for explorers like Ernest Giles, W. C. Gosse, and Peter Egerton-Warburton who were heading west.
In February 1875, a small contingent of Overland Telegraph employees left Port Darwin for Adelaide on the ill-fated SS Gothenburg.
A few days later, at least ten were among the hundred-odd who lost their lives after she encountered a severe storm, and was driven into the Great Barrier Reef and sank.
Atmospheric disturbance from solar flares induced interfering signals in some sections of the line, and lightning strikes were not uncommon.
The flood at the Peake was unprecedented, but Todd authorised replacing the 23 ft (7.0 m) steel poles with 30-footers, set in concrete and reinforced with struts.
On 19 November 1871, Australia was connected telegraphically with the rest of the world after a cable was laid by BAT from Banyuwangi (Banjoewangie), at the eastern end of Java, to Darwin.
The site in the intertidal zone where the cables come ashore in Darwin, where they are still visible during very low tides, was heritage listed in 2020.
The contract for the cables called for the manufacture of 970 nautical miles of cable containing a single galvanised copper core with 220 nautical miles being brass sheathed, laid by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company for the Eastern Extension, Australasia and China Telegraph Company, by the SS Seine.
[38][39][40][41][42][43][12][44][45][46] In the 1930s Cinesound Productions announced plans to make a movie about the Telegraph based on a script by Frank Clune.
In 2007, the ABC produced Constructing Australia, a three-part miniseries, which included the 55-minute "Wire through the Heart" on the Overland Telegraph Line.
