Abstract
The period 1860–80 saw the zenith of cable telegraph technology as the first global electronic communications network was successfully installed. India was at the centre of this network that linked the imperial powers of the west to the colonies and captive markets in the east. The Indian subcontinent was the hub that controlled these lines that stretched from western India to Europe and eastern and southern India to south East Asia and Australasia. It was the crucial element in the imperial telegraph system. The period 1860–80 was one of immense expansion, frantic building and the return of the romance of travel and exploration through the construction of telegraph lines. It saw an enormous investment in terms of money and men, as the project to girdle the globe with lines of telegraph was taken up with fervent zeal. Below the surface of this picture lie relatively uncharted tales of contesting technologies, technological fashions, standardisation of speed and cost, and competition between various telegraph companies, nations and men.
Submarine telegraphy is one of the greatest achievements of the Victorian or any other age.
Lord Mayor of London, 18941
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Notes
Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
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Cf. Graham Storey, Reuters’ Century 1851–1951 London: Max Parrish, 1951.
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© 2010 Deep Kanta Lahiri Choudhury
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Choudhury, D.K.L. (2010). The Magical Mystery Tour: Cable Telegraphy. In: Telegraphic Imperialism. The Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289604_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289604_6
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