History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

Australian Cables
by Bill Glover

The first cable laid in Australian waters was across the Bass Strait from Cape Otway, Victoria, on the mainland via King Island, Three Hummock Island and Stanley Head to Georgetown, Tasmania. Henley’s Telegraph Works manufactured the cable and laid it using a chartered vessel, Omes. The cable failed after three weeks. Henley’s manufactured the next cable as well, this time as a subcontractor for the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company Ltd., who laid the cable from CS Investigator. Siemens Bros laid two cables in 1909 using CS Faraday (1); this time they ran from Flinders, Victoria, to Port Dalrymple, Tasmania.

The first telephone cable laid across the Strait was in 1935 when Siemens Bros. used CS Faraday(2) to do the work. After completing this they fitted out an old hulk with cable gear and laid a 11 nm telephone cable from near Fremantle to Rottnest Island. Maintenance was usually carried out by Eastern Extension ships and their successors. On occasions the NZ ship Matai was chartered and if none of these were available Mernoo was chartered on a temporary basis.

To complete the link between England and Australia John Pender formed the British-Australian Telegraph Company. The first stage was to lay a 557 nm cable from Singapore to Batavia on the island of Java, CS Hibernia laying the cable in 1870. In the following year CS’s Hibernia, Edinburgh and Investigator arrived at Port Darwin, as it was known then, on 25 October. The shore end was laid on the morning of 7 November and the fleet set out for Banjoewangie, Java, arriving there on 16 November after laying 1082 nm of cable. The cable failed on 24 June 1872 and was not repaired until 21 October. Batavia and Banjoewangie, situated on either end of the island of Java, were connected by landline. The British-Australian Telegraph Company became part of the Eastern Extension, Australasia and China Telegraph Company (EEACTC) on its formation in 1873.

In 1879 another cable was laid: Singapore - Banjoewangie by CS’s Scotia and Edinburgh, and Banjoewangie - Darwin, laid by CS’s Seine and Edinburgh, thus cutting out the Java landline. A third cable from Banjoewangie to Australia was laid by CS Seine in 1890 this landing being at Broome, Western Australia.

With the formation of the Pacific Cable Board the Eastern and the Eastern Extension decided to extend their England - South Africa cables to Australia, the route being Cape Town - Durban by landline, then by cable to Mauritius - Rodriguez Island - Cocos (Keeling) Islands - Cottesloe, Perth - Glenelg, Adelaide. The Eastern Telegraph Company owned and operated the Durban - Mauritius cable and the Eastern Extension the rest. The next cable to land in Australia was laid in 1926 by CS Colonia from Cocos (Keeling) Islands to Cottesloe, Perth, this being a loaded cable.

Following decisions taken at the Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference in London in 1945, the Australian Government purchased the assets of Cable and Wireless in 1946 and set up the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) to operate all external cable and wireless services.

For COMPAC a link from Sydney to Auckland was laid by HMTS Monarch (4) with CS Retriever(5) laying the shore ends in April 1962. The SEACOM 2 route was Hong Kong - Guam - Medang - Cairns, Australia and provided links to TPC 1 at Guam and COMPAC at Sydney, the link between Sydney and Cairns being provided by microwave. Laying of SEACOM was carried out by HMTS Monarch (4) and CS Mercury. The cable and repeaters were manufactured by Standard Telephone & Cables Ltd and Submarine Cables Ltd.

ANZCAN, laid in 1983-4, was a replacement for COMPAC and covered the same route but with landings at Norfolk Island, one from Auckland and one from Sydney. The main cable, laid by CS Cable Venture, ran from Sydney to Norfolk Island, Suva, Fiji, Oahu, Hawaii and on to Port Alberni, Vancouver.

MERNOO

Built in 1926 by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson.

Length 285.3 ft. Breadth 42.7 ft Depth 20.4 ft Gross tonnage 2417.

First chartered in 1937 to carry out repairs. Fitted out with bow sheaves and a portable combined paying out-picking up machine and other gear. Also used for harbour defence work during World War 2.

Research Material Needed

The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible.

You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians.

If you have any cable-related items that you could photograph, copy, scan, loan, or sell, please email me: billb@ftldesign.com