Diego Pitones
Mrs. Homon
Freshman English, 8
19 March 2018
Industrial Revolution
One may wonder how Britain’s Industry and Economy grew largely during the Victorian Era. The answer is the telegraph. Communications in the 1800s advanced rapidly within the United Kingdom because of the creation of the telegraph. Railroads were constructed, which then assisted the spread of this new found technology. Many people including William Cooke, Charles Wheatstone, Samuel Morse, and more helped the idea of the telegraph grow along the way. The technology of the telegraph in the Victorian Era was an advancement of communication used to assist many tasks allowing the economy and industry to grow on a mass scale.
The thought throughout the years before the Victorian Era was there had to be a faster way of communicating with others, both close and far away, other than writing a letter and riding on horseback. During this Era that dream and thought became a reality with the creation of the telegraph by Samuel Morse. Samuel Morse created this faster kind of communication after he was informed his wife had died and he did not make it back in time for her funeral. Morse, starting off his career was not a scientist or mechanic, but an artist. He did not decide to become a scientist until 1837. Morse switched from art to science because he was not making much money, but aboard the Sully in 1832, he acquired the idea of the telegraph. Morse’s version of the telegraph would be opened up from André-Marie Ampére and Hans Christian Oersted’s knowledge of electricity. Also, from William Sturgeon and Joseph Henry’s knowledge of electromagnetism. In the article, Samuel Morse and the Telegraph, written by Brooke Hindle, it states, “Morse immediately saw his vision and declared, ‘I see no reason why intelligence might not be instantaneously transmitted by electricity to any distance’”(107). Samuel Morse knew in his head that electricity had the power to send communications across electricity lines almost instantaneously, so he sought it out. Morse then started to design his own telegraph. After he designed it, he started a reality that many dreamed of.
Morse struggled with the creation of the telegraph because of lack of funding. In the book, Industrial Revolution Primary Sources, it states, “The telegraph sent electricity through wires to coil of wire, which caused metal in the center of the coil to become magnetized; the magnet, in turn, attracted metal, and enabled the receiver to record a series of long and short electrical signals” (Outman 77). Finally in 1840, after numerous designs, experiments, and trials, Samuel Morse created his version of the telegraph with the support of Congress. First though, Morse had to demonstrate this new communication to Congress and others. Outman continues, “In 1837 he had applied for a grant being offered by Congress to demonstrate a long-distance telegraph, but Congress did not get around to granting the money, $30,000, until near the end of 1843” (Outman 77). Morse would then use this grant money to construct a telegraph cable between other cities, including Baltimore and Washington. With the construction of this telegraph wires came problems like there was no large source of electrical technology to draw the energy the telegraph needed from. Also, Morse did not know how to lay the wire down. Once he figured out the wire problem, they laid the wire and on May 1, 1844, Samuel Morse and his colleague Alfred Vail tested the wire with Vail in Annapolis Junction and Morse in Washington. It would be tested against the speed of a train delivering a message coming from Baltimore to Washington. Once all the tests were complete, Morse was given permission to build more telegraph lines and put his telegraph on the market. It did not take long before his version of the telegraph grew to the top of all other competing systems. On May 15, 1845, Samuel Morse made his own company named The Magnetic Telegraph Company. Then he constructed many more telegraph wire lines across the country.
Although Morse’s telegraph was one of the top sold and used, he was not the first to create the Electric Telegraph. Two Englishmen by the names of William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone created the first ever electric telegraph on July 25, 1837. Cooke, an inventor, and Wheatstone, a scientist, built the first electric telegraph between London Euston and Camden Town. Cooke and the engineer, Robert Stephenson were at their workplace in Camden Town and Wheatstone traveled to London Euston to test their electric telegraph. This is stated in a BBC article written by Paul Atterbury where it says, “The first operational telegraph system linked Euston Station and Camden town, and from there it spread all over the railway network, used both to carry messages and to control signaling” (Victorian Technology). Improving the safety on railways was the overall goal of the telegraph invented by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone. With the use of this new communication along the railways, the railway and telegraph networks became close together like in a relationship. Cooke and Wheatstone went on to find The Electric Telegraph Company. This Company still exists today in its descendant, BT. The growth of the “Victorian Internet,” as it was called, was slowed because the first commercial telegraph line did not be constructed until 1839 between West Drayton and Paddington. This first telegraph had many uses in different companies and jobs throughout the cities or even countries.
The telegraph became very popular, bring the whole world together. It also gained many uses along the years such as catching criminals. At the beginning of 1845, a man named John Tarwell killed his wife using poison, panicked and scared, he ran away. Tarwell was caught getting off a train in London thanks to Alas, a stationmaster at Slough who telegraphed the police after hearing of the murder. There have also been other uses for the telegraph like political leaders contacting each other. In 1858, Queen Victoria sent a 99-word telegraph message to James Buchanan, the US President at the time. The message to James Buchanan took 16 hours to send across the Atlantic Ocean which had been laid with over 2,500 miles of telegraph wires. In a British History article, Victorian Technology, it states, “In 1866 Brunel’s huge ship, The Great Eastern, laid a durable telegraph cable across the Atlantic” (Victorian Technology). Eventually, there was telegraph wires worldwide. Britain constructed lines to India in 1870, and lines to Australia in 1872 via submarine. The telegraph was also used to report news to the news companies for their newspapers. In the years 1902-1903 alone, there were over 92 million telegrams sent making that period of time the peak of the telegraph. One other time the telegraph was used was during World War I where people in offices and on the fronts of battle sent messages back and forth, some carrying bad news. If the telegraph was never created, Alexander Graham Bell would have never created the telephone in 1876 leading him to create The Telephone Company in 1878. The possibilities of the telegraph were endless, from being used in the First World War, small factories, and business to being used to marry couples that live across the country from one another. In the book, Victorian Internet, it states, “…but within a few months of the electric telegraph being open to the public, it was being used for something that even the most farsighted of telegraph advocates had never dared to imagine: to conduct an on-line wedding” (Standage 127). The telegraph was used in countless other objectives, but it would not have been possible if it were not for the telegraph operators.
The Victorian Era marked a huge growth in the industries of the United Kingdom because of the creation of the telegraph which allowed faster communications between war fronts, businesses, political leaders, and more. The creation of the telegraph by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone interested many people because it was a large step up in the communications of that present day. Yet, as it was proven to work more and more people used it in their daily lives to transmit messages to others rapidly. Then the railways, once the telegraph companies gained their support, helped the laying of telegraph wires on land, and the submarines helped to lay wires across Oceans, spreading the usage of the telegraph far and wide. Although this technology was used on a mass scale for a short time, it marked new beginnings for companies, businesses, and many other organizations.
Works Cited
Atterbury, Paul. “History-British History in Depth: Victorian Technology.” BBC, BBC, 17 Feb. 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/victorian_technology_01.shtml. Accessed 13 February 2017.
Hindle, Brooke. The Industrial Revolution. The Gale Group, 2002.
History.com Staff. “Industrial Revolution.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www. history.com/topics/industrial-revolution. Accessed 12 February 2018.
Outman, James, and Elizabeth Outman. Industrial Revolution Primary Sources. The Gale Group, 2003.
Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet. Walker & Company, 1998.
Tmg. “Who Made the First Electric Telegraph Communications?” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 2 Dec. 2016, www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/connecting-britain/first-electric-telegraph/. Accessed 18 March 2018.
Wolfe, James. The Industrial Revolution Steam and Steel. Britannica Educational Publishing, 2016.