Co-directors of William Hooper put forward a scheme to set up the Great Western Telegraph Company to lay a cable from England to the USA and on to Bermuda. They had been attracted by the profits being made by the Anglo American Telegraph Company. The Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, which had a substantial holding of shares in Anglo American, offered them its South American concessions on the condition they dropped the transatlantic plan, which they did.

These concessions had been granted by the Brazilian Emperor to Sir Charles Tilston Bright who in turn sold them to Telcon. The Great Western Telegraph Company was wound up and the Western and Brazilian Telegraph Company (W&B) was set up in its place.

The cable already manufactured by Hooper's Telegraph Works for the Atlantic was used on the east coast of South America between Para and Rio de Janeiro. CS Hooper laid the cables during 1873 from Para-Maranham-Ceara-Pernambuco-Bahia-Rio de Janeiro.