British-Indian Submarine Telegraph Co
This company was formed to provide the final link in the Indo-European submarine telegraph cable by linking Bombay to Aden and then to Suez.
Telcon was awarded the contract. Five cable ships were used, CS's Great Eastern, Chiltern, Hawk and Hibernia were involved in laying with CS William Cory carrying additional cable.
1869 The Great Eastern left Portland Harbour, accompanied by CS Hawk and CS Hibernia, on the 6th November.
1870 The ships arrived in Bombay on the 28th January. Paying out commenced on the 4th February, with Great Eastern laying almost 2000 nautical miles of cable to complete the leg to Aden, where the cable was buoyed off ready for Chiltern to attach and lay the shore ends. When Chiltern arrived the cable was missing and had to be grappled for.
From Aden Great, a further 325 nm were laid, plus another 260 nm of cable from Suez. There were problems at Suez when the paying out gear of one of the ships jammed, and the shore end of the cable was pulled out of the cable hut.
From Suez to Alexandria telegrams passed over the landlines of the Egyptian State Telegraph system. To maintain these cables the company purchased CS Chiltern from Telcon and the vessel was transferred to the Eastern Telegraph Co on its formation.
1870 After the line to India had been completed, a celebration was held, in June, at Pender's house in London. The first messages were simply ‘How are you?’, to which came the reply ‘All well’. This exchange took less than five minutes, when communication with India had previously taken several months. Some 700 guests thronged Pender's house and the pavilion erected in his courtyard, ranging in status from the royalty of England and India through assorted European nobility and diplomats, naval officers, and other such people of note.
1872 It was agreed that the Company, together with The Falmouth, Gibraltar, and Malta Telegraph Company Limited, the Anglo-Mediterranean Telegraph Company Limited, and the Marseilles, Algiers, and Malta Telegraph Company Limited, be amalgamated into a new Company, to be called the Eastern Submarine Telegraph Company Limited, or some other name, and to be incorporated with a nominal share capital of £3,800,000, in 380,000 shares of £10 each, with the view of consolidating the several undertakings of the first-mentioned four Companies, and transferring or vesting the assets and property thereof respectively to or in such new Company[1]
- Note:
- See: Eastern Telegraph Co for fuller version.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ London Gazette 8 Nov 1872
- [1] History of the Atlantic Cable and Submarine Telegraphy