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History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications |
The Evolution of Cable & Wireless, Part 3 |
ORIGINS OF THE EASTERN & ASSOCIATED TELEGRAPH COMPANIES | ||||||||||||||||||||||
In 1902 the Eastern Telegraph Company
and The Eastern Extension, Australasia & China Telegraph Company merged
to form The Eastern & Associated Telegraph Companies, and many smaller
companies, described below, were also incorporated into the merged entity.
Unless otherwise stated all cables mentioned in these articles were manufactured and laid by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company Ltd. |
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THE
BRAZILIAN SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH COMPANY
This was another John Pender company, formed on 8 January 1873. The Portuguese expressed preference for a British company to connect Portugal to Brazil. Already established at Carcavelos, Pender was able to set up the Brazilian Submarine Telegraph Company to link Carcavelos to Pernambuco via Madeira and Cape Verde Islands. Not surprisingly, Telcon were awarded the contract to manufacture and lay the complete system. CS Seine on her maiden voyage as a cable ship, assisted by CS Minia, laid the section from Carcavelos to Madeira, beginning in August 1873. During the lay a fault was detected some 180 nm away from the ship, which was ignored for the moment, and then, after a splice was made, the cable fouled the paying-out gear and was lost in very deep water. It took a month of grappling before the cable was recovered and the line completed to Madeira. An attempt was then made to repair the fault discovered earlier (which had left the cable only partially working), but adverse weather resulted in the loss of the ship's stock of grapnel rope and the breaking of the cable. This section was finally brought into service the following year by CS Africa and CS Kangaroo, which recovered the cable and repaired it in six days in April 1874. Shortly after this, CS Hibernia and CS Edinburgh laid the section from Madeira to St Vincent, Cape Verde Islands, with CS Investigator laying the shore ends in June 1874. The cables were later duplicated: in 1882 the Carcavelos-Madeira section by CS Seine, and in 1884 the Madeira-St Vincent section by CS Scotia, and the St Vincent-Pernambuco section by CS Scotia and CS Calabria. These were the last cables laid before the change of name to the Western Telegraph Company (see below). |
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THE
WESTERN AND BRAZILIAN TELEGRAPH COMPANY
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 who 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.
Another company set up by the same directors was the Central American Telegraph Company to link Para, the northern end of the W&B system, to the West India & Panama Telegraph Company. The cable, laid in 1874 between Para and Demerara by CS Hooper, was abandoned in 1876 and the two systems had to rely on a landline connection until La Société des Télégraphes Sous-Marin laid a cable from Para to Martinique. The Companhia Telegrafica Platino-Brasilera [alternatively Platino-Brasileira] was set up in Brazil in 1874 to lay a cable from Rio de Janeiro to Chuy, Uruguay with the W&B company operating the service. This they did until 1879, when they took over the company and renamed it the London Platino Brazilian Telegraph Company. The 1026 nm cable was manufactured by Siemens Brothers who also undertook the installation. During the expedition two cable ships were lost. Two vessels, Ambassador and Gomos, were chartered and fitted out for the expedition. Ambassador laid her section of the cable, but Gomos ran aground on a sandbar in the Rio Grande do Sul and became a total loss. CS La Plata was chartered from W.T. Henley to lay the replacement cable, but foundered in the Bay of Biscay on 29 November 1874, with the loss of 58 lives. Ambassador collected another replacement cable and successfully laid it.
At Chuy, a cable laid by W.T. Henley using CS Mazeppa ran to Montevideo and was owned by the Montevideo and Brazilian Telegraph Company. This company was also taken over by the W&B. From Montevideo a landline followed the River Plate for about sixty miles and then crossed into Argentina via a 25 nm cable laid by W.T. Henley in 1866. In 1873 the IRGP laid a cable from Montevideo to Punta Lara, Argentina, and this was later diverted to replace the landline. These cables were owned by the River Plate Telegraph Company and this company was also taken over by W&B. Connections to the West Coast of America Telegraph Company were made via the landlines of the Pacific and Europe Telegraph Company.
Telcon were awarded a contract in 1877 to link Maranham to Pernambuco. On arrival CS Hibernia was taken up river by a pilot and anchored. During the night she touched bottom and began to take in water. As the tide rose the weight of water broke her back. About 150 nm of the cable on board was recovered. The cable was eventually laid by CS Calabria and CS Kangaroo in 1879. At the same time CS Kangaroo also laid a cable between Para and Maranham. On 1 January 1900 the Western Telegraph Company acquired the share capital of the Western & Brazilian Telegraph Company. The merger had been approved by the Brazilian Government on 6 June 1899. |
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THE WEST
COAST OF AMERICA TELEGRAPH COMPANY
Formed in 1875 by some of the directors of the IRGP, the company had a cable laid between Valparaiso and Lima by CS Dacia with landings at La Serena, Caldera, Antofagasta, Iquique, Arico and Mollendo. This was the only cable laid by the company. The company encountered financial difficulties in the first two years of operation and was taken over by John Pender's Eastern Telegraph Company; a new company with the same name was incorporated in 1877. The Central and South American Telegraph Company had a terminus at Chorillos, Lima and traffic was exchanged between the two companies in Lima, then the Central was granted an extension to Valparaiso so the West Coast moved its southern terminus to Concepcion. On 12 April 1897 the 1877 company was liquidated and a new company again with the same name was formed. This is the company that became part of Cable & Wireless. |
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THE
AMAZON TELEGRAPH COMPANY
The Western & Brazilian Telegraph Company set up the Amazon Telegraph Company in 1895 to lay a cable up the River Amazon. A fifty-year concession was granted to the company by the Brazilian Government. Siemens Brothers were awarded the contract to manufacture and lay the cable. CS Faraday (1) was used to lay the 1600 nm of cable between Para (Belem) and Manaos. The ship encountered many problems while laying, on one occasion being stranded on a sandbar for nine days. CS Viking (1) was transferred from the Western and Brazilian and converted for repair work under the Amazon conditions. This ship was scrapped in 1901, and CS Viking (2) then took over, joined in 1912 by CS Ramos. When the concession expired in 1945 all assets of
the company were transferred to the Brazilian Government. |
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THE
WESTERN TELEGRAPH COMPANY
In the mid-1880s the Brazilian Submarine Telegraph Company (see above) changed its name to the Western Telegraph Company. One of the first tasks undertaken by the new company was to lay cables from Para to Montevideo. CS Scotia undertook the laying. Para-Pernmabuco 1390 nm
The Eastern Telegraph Company improved links with the Western company by laying a cable from Madeira-St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands, in 1901 using CS Anglia and CS Britannia (2) to lay the 1130 nm cable. This was followed by a 1375 nm cable from Madeira to Porthcurno laid by the same two cable ships In 1906 the Western had a cable laid from St. Vincent to Fayal, Azores, where it connected with the Europe and Azores Telegraph Company which provided another link to Porthcurno. CS Colonia laid this 1467 nm cable.
CS Colonia was in action again in 1910 in the area, laying a cable St. Vincent-Ascension-Buenos Aires. The section from Ascension to Buenos Aires was the second longest cable ever laid, being 3145 nm in length. CS Cambria assisted and CS Cormorant (2) laid the cable up the River Plate. In 1919 CS Colonia laid a 2103 nm cable Ascension-Rio de Janeiro.
While connections to Europe were good, those to the USA were poor, as messages had to travel over a number of different systems. In 1920 the Western Telegraph Company and the Western Union Telegraph Company agreed to lay a cable from Miami to Maranham. Western Union laid the section from Miami to Barbados. This cable was laid by CS Stephan, and CS Colonia with Western Union's CS Robert C. Clowry laid the Miami shore ends. When CS Colonia arrived off the coast of America she was prevented from connecting to the shore end by US destroyers. So she dropped the end of the cable outside the three mile limit and proceeded towards Barbados. Eventually the political difficulties were sorted out and the whole cable came into use in 1922. The Western company cable ran from Barbados to Maranham and was also laid by CS Colonia and CS Stephan.
CS Colonia laid cables from Pernambuco-Maranham and Santos-Rio de Janeiro during 1922. During the 1914-8 war a cable was laid from Montevideo
to the Falkland Islands for the Admiralty. After the war the cable was
abandoned and large parts of it were recovered and used elsewhere.
This article from The Pan American Magazine, May 1915, has an overview of the Western Telegraph Company and its history:
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THE
EASTERN AND SOUTH AFRICAN TELEGRAPH COMPANY
This was another John Pender company, set up in 1879 to link Aden and Cape Town with landings at the British and Portuguese colonies on the east coast of Africa. Telcon were awarded the contract to make and lay the 3900 nm cable. Aden-Zanzibar laid by CS Scotia To maintain the cables CS Great Northern was purchased from Hoopers Telegraph Works and based at Zanzibar. As the number of cables grew another ship, the Nentwater, was purchased from W. Dickinson of Newcastle and converted for cable repair work. Named CS Duplex her main area of work was on the west coast of Africa.
In 1889 cables were laid on the west coast of Africa to link up with the West African Telegraph Company cables. Telcon carried out the links: Cape Town-Nolloth-Mossamedes, Angola. CS Scotia laid the 1584 nm cable. IRGP then laid a cable from Mossamedes to Benguela and Luanda, Angola. These were followed in 1890 by two cables, one linking Zanzibar with Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, the other connecting Zanzibar to Mombasa, Kenya. Three years later Telcon were awarded contracts to connect Zanzibar to the Seychelles and Mauritius. CS Scotia and CS Britannia (2) laid this 1128 nm long Zanzibar-Seychelles cable as well as the 1067 nm Seychelles-Mauritius cable. The last major cable to be laid in this area was the Aden-Seychelles cable of 1922 which was laid by CS Colonia and CS Stephan.
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THE EASTERN & ASSOCIATED
TELEGRAPH COMPANIES
In 1902 when the new group came into being it left the ETC offices at 66 Old Broad Street and moved into new offices at Electra House, 84 Moorgate, London EC2. From this address it acquired the name of the 'Electra House Group'. This was both the administrative centre and also the main telegraph station linked to Porthcurno by landlines leased from the GPO. It was also the year that the Pacific Cable came into operation, the first time that the Eastern group had had competition within the British Empire. Other than that not much else changed in the running of the various companies which made up the group, they still operated under their original names. A year previously Marconi had transmitted his first signal across the Atlantic from Poldhu, Cornwall to Signal Hill, St. Johns, Newfoundland. While Marconi was carrying out his experiments at Poldhu the ETC set up a listening station just above Porthcurno, close to the site of the present day Minack Theatre, to find out what Marconi was up to and whether it posed a threat to their cable business. They concluded that it would not. At the time this was a true assessment but things were to change and the E&A were not ready for it when it came. The decision to go ahead with the Pacific cable (See Pacific Cables 1902-26) brought about price reductions by the Eastern group and many said that that was a good enough reason for laying the cable. When the Pacific service opened on 9 December 1902 the rate to Canada from Australia was 2s-4d per word against the Eastern groups 3s-0d. Prior to a number of reductions made by the E&A the rate had been 4s-9d. Another advantage of the Pacific cable was that it took an hour to transmit a telegram from Australia to England whereas the E&A route took almost a day. Apart from this one minor inconvenience the E&A carried on as normal, the first World War helped to boost its profits and its shareholders continued to receive satisfying dividends. Even the GPO Imperial cables across the Atlantic (See GPO Cables) didn't cause them any problems. On the 50th anniversary of the group, in 1922, a commemoration was held in London, and the souvenir book included maps of the cable system in 1872 and 1922. In 1925 a method of regenerating submarine telegraph signals automatically came into use which led to large scale redundancies amongst operators at the various relay stations throughout the network. This enabled the company to reduce costs. The benefit was shortlived. When the short wave 'Beam' system developed by Marconi, and operated by the GPO, came into service during 1926-7 the E&A found itself with serious problems. Within six months of the service, known as Empiradio, opening it took away 65% of the Eastern and Eastern Extension social traffic. They were hit where it hurt most, in their profits. They were not the only ones to suffer the Pacific cable also lost a considerable amount of traffic, a case of a government owned cable system losing business to a government owned wireless telegraph system. Consequently at the end of 1927, the Chairman of the group, Sir John Denison Pender, approached the Government of the day to help them. The alternative was to liquidate the group and pay out the shareholders. Negotiations took place between the cable companies, Marconi's company and the Government. The outcome was a merger of the two. On 8 April 1929 the new operating company Imperial & International Communications Ltd. and the holding company Cables & Wireless Ltd., came into being. Return to the Cable & Wireless index page |
Last revised: 22 December, 2022 |
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