106-420: Australia was a relatively early adopter of electrical telegraph technology in the middle of the nineteenth century, despite its low population densities and the difficult conditions sometimes encountered in laying lines. From 1858 onwards, the major capitals were progressively linked, culminating in the addition of Perth in 1877. Australia was linked to the rest of the world for the first time in 1872, through
212-506: A 175-yard (160 m) long trench as well as an eight-mile (13 km) long overhead telegraph. The lines were connected at both ends to revolving dials marked with the letters of the alphabet and electrical impulses sent along the wire were used to transmit messages. Offering his invention to the Admiralty in July 1816, it was rejected as "wholly unnecessary". His account of the scheme and
318-446: A cable at Perth, via Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). American and British entrepreneurs alike saw Australia as vital terminal points for their expanding overseas cables. For the next sixteen years speculation and competition was rife between competing colonies. Four routes to Australia were serious contenders: Queensland pushed hard and had a route explored from Cardwell to Burketown in 1866, a distance of 450 miles. Queensland thought they had
424-480: A clock-face, and the signal caused a needle to indicate the letter. This early system required the receiver to be present in real time to record the message and it reached speeds of up to 15 words a minute. In 1846, Alexander Bain patented a chemical telegraph in Edinburgh. The signal current moved an iron pen across a moving paper tape soaked in a mixture of ammonium nitrate and potassium ferrocyanide, decomposing
530-591: A distance of 19 kilometres (12 mi). After negotiations with the Government they finally agreed to a shared investment. Construction commenced on 9 February 1869 and was opened for service on 21 June 1869. Of great significance to the colony was the connection from Perth to Albany. Many steamer ships from England to the eastern states would call at Albany for supplies on their way to Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. If messages, information and newspapers could be intercepted and transmitted quickly to Perth rather than by
636-468: A few kilometers (in von Sömmering's design), with each of the telegraph receiver's wires immersed in a separate glass tube of acid. An electric current was sequentially applied by the sender through the various wires representing each letter of a message; at the recipient's end, the currents electrolysed the acid in the tubes in sequence, releasing streams of hydrogen bubbles next to each associated letter or numeral. The telegraph receiver's operator would watch
742-549: A final contract cost of £53,000 was laid and made operational on 18 August 1859. Unfortunately the cable was constantly out of service due to faults undersea and by January 1861 it was abandoned. An enduring cable link was established between Cape Otway on the Victorian mid-south coast, through to King Island and, ultimately, Launceston , Tasmania , the £70000 cost paid fully by the Tasmanian Government and it
848-698: A moving paper tape by a stylus which was operated by an electromagnet. Morse and Vail developed the Morse code signalling alphabet . On May 24, 1844, Morse sent to Vail the historic first message “ WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT " from the Capitol in Washington to the old Mt. Clare Depot in Baltimore . The first commercial electrical telegraph was the Cooke and Wheatstone system . A demonstration four-needle system
954-657: A national basis. The PMG Department progressively improved telegraphic equipment. In 1905, the use of Wheatstone equipment on the Adelaide and Perth routes improved speed to 220 words per minute. By 1922, the Murray Multiplex System allowed one line to be used for eight transmissions at the speed of 50 words per transmission per minute. As World War II threatened the Northern Territory in 1942, and Japanese forces moved through Java and Timor ,
1060-576: A permanent magnet and connecting the coil with the transmission wires by means of the commutator. The page of Gauss's laboratory notebook containing both his code and the first message transmitted, as well as a replica of the telegraph made in the 1850s under the instructions of Weber are kept in the faculty of physics at the University of Göttingen , in Germany. Gauss was convinced that this communication would be of help to his kingdom's towns. Later in
1166-492: A population of 25,000 with total revenue from all sources being £135,000 per annum, and from that was to come the estimated £30,000 cost of the line. South Australia's commitment was also significant; it had to complete the line across the vast Nullarbor Plain . South Australia's parliament voted the funds approved on 4 November 1874, allowing the work to commence. After tenders were invited in February 1875, Walter Thompson
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#17328021283281272-426: A practical alphabetical system in 1840 called the A.B.C. System, used mostly on private wires. This consisted of a "communicator" at the sending end and an "indicator" at the receiving end. The communicator consisted of a circular dial with a pointer and the 26 letters of the alphabet (and four punctuation marks) around its circumference. Against each letter was a key that could be pressed. A transmission would begin with
1378-739: A proposed town to be named Wellington, with prior consent of the Duke of Wellington himself. Despite never having seen the land except on a map, the directors of the Association had great hopes for Wellington becoming an important town. The survey eventually provided for 700 lots in Wellington (west side of the Murray) and 300 lots in Wellington East (east side of the Murray), as well as rural sections. Messrs Cannan and Henderson carried out
1484-557: A recently immigrated Canadian telegrapher. The line covered a distance of 17 kilometres (11 mi) and went into operation in March 1854, less than 10 years after the opening of the first public telegraph line (1 May 1844) in the world (linking Baltimore and Washington DC). 4000 telegrams were despatched in the first year (1854). When the line was extended to Geelong in December 1854, the first message transmitted to Melbourne brought news of
1590-463: A scheme vast and difficult [that] will, we doubt not, at no very distant date be carried out'. The Adelaide to Melbourne connection was begun in April 1857 and completed in July 1858. This included a 300 km South Australian section built at that colony's expense. So heavily used was the first telegraph line to Melbourne that Todd reported to the government that a second line was needed. The second line
1696-545: A sensitive indicator for an electric current. Also that year, André-Marie Ampère suggested that telegraphy could be achieved by placing small magnets under the ends of a set of wires, one pair of wires for each letter of the alphabet. He was apparently unaware of Schweigger's invention at the time, which would have made his system much more sensitive. In 1825, Peter Barlow tried Ampère's idea but only got it to work over 200 feet (61 m) and declared it impractical. In 1830 William Ritchie improved on Ampère's design by placing
1802-601: A short-distance transmission of signals between two telegraphs in different rooms of his apartment. In 1836, the British government attempted to buy the design but Schilling instead accepted overtures from Nicholas I of Russia . Schilling's telegraph was tested on a 5-kilometre-long (3.1 mi) experimental underground and underwater cable, laid around the building of the main Admiralty in Saint Petersburg and
1908-405: A steady rhythm, and the usual speed of operation was 30 words per minute. By this point, reception had been automated, but the speed and accuracy of the transmission were still limited to the skill of the human operator. The first practical automated system was patented by Charles Wheatstone. The message (in Morse code ) was typed onto a piece of perforated tape using a keyboard-like device called
2014-467: A telegraph along the Nuremberg–Fürth railway line , built in 1835 as the first German railroad, which was the first earth-return telegraph put into service. By 1837, William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone had co-developed a telegraph system which used a number of needles on a board that could be moved to point to letters of the alphabet. Any number of needles could be used, depending on
2120-477: A useful communication system. In 1774, Georges-Louis Le Sage realised an early electric telegraph. The telegraph had a separate wire for each of the 26 letters of the alphabet and its range was only between two rooms of his home. In 1800, Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile , providing a continuous current of electricity for experimentation. This became a source of a low-voltage current that could be used to produce more distinct effects, and which
2226-696: Is a point-to-point text messaging system, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems called telegraphs , that were devised to send text messages more quickly than physically carrying them. Electrical telegraphy can be considered the first example of electrical engineering . Text telegraphy consisted of two or more geographically separated stations, called telegraph offices . The offices were connected by wires, usually supported overhead on utility poles . Many electrical telegraph systems were invented that operated in different ways, but
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#17328021283282332-574: Is in the Rural City of Murray Bridge . At the 2006 census , Wellington had a population of 295. Because of its geographical similarities, the first European colonists likened the development potential of the site of Wellington to that of New Orleans . In 1839 the London-based Secondary Towns Association, represented in Adelaide by John Morphett and John Hill , authorised expenditure on the special survey
2438-413: Is the long-distance transmission of textual messages where the sender uses a semaphore system, known to the recipient. An electrical telegraph uses electric current and magnetism to convert the manual typing of codes that represent words, into electrical impulses. These impulses are transmitted over a metallic circuit (overhead wires or underground cables) to a distant location. At the distant location
2544-689: The Allies were afraid that Japan would use the telegraph service to eavesdrop on communications with the rest of the world, so the submarine connection from Darwin to Java was cut. Telegram usage continued to climb within Australia, peaking at 35 million messages per annum in 1945. Thereafter, the telephone continuously eroded the use of telegrams, both because of the relative price of the two services and network service improvements. Additionally, from 1954, teleprinters handled more and more traffic. In 1959, an automated switching system (TRESS) further enhanced
2650-706: The Eureka Stockade . Connections to Queenscliff and Port Melbourne (January and July 1855) provided notice of ships entering the harbour and arriving at port. Connections to the gold-mining centres of Ballarat and Bendigo were both completed in December 1856. By 1857 Victoria had been extensively networked by telegraph lines, including a line reaching to Portland, near the South Australian state border. By 1867 there were 1,676 miles (2,697 km) of line within Victoria, handling 122,138 messages. Late 1854
2756-711: The Northern Territory Heritage Register . This will serve to protect the cables where they come ashore, lying partly buried at Lameroo Beach in Darwin. The Fergusson River Overland Telegraph Line Pylons and Oppenheimer Telegraph Poles had been declared on 28 January 2012, and the Frew Ponds Overland Telegraph Line Memorial Reserve on 6 September 2006 (under previous heritage legislation). Electrical telegraph Electrical telegraphy
2862-552: The Overland Telegraph which ran some 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) from Adelaide through to Darwin . The network continued to expand in size and sophistication until 1959 and in heavy usage until 1945, after which time telephone usage began to erode public patronage of telegraphy services. The final publicly provided telegraphy service was closed in 1993. A telegraph is a device for transmitting and receiving messages over long distances, i.e., for telegraphy , which
2968-517: The Victorian gold rushes crossed the Murray at Wellington. Even though the Murray has very little flow most of the time, and Lake Alexandrina is mostly only a few metres deep, the river at Wellington is about 25 metres deep. The surface is often less than one metre above sea level. Once established, Wellington became a busy ferry crossing point for several decades during the 1840s to 1870s. Servicing
3074-470: The 'Stick Punch'. The transmitter automatically ran the tape through and transmitted the message at the then exceptionally high speed of 70 words per minute. An early successful teleprinter was invented by Frederick G. Creed . In Glasgow he created his first keyboard perforator, which used compressed air to punch the holes. He also created a reperforator (receiving perforator) and a printer. The reperforator punched incoming Morse signals onto paper tape and
3180-579: The ITA-1 Baudot code , a five-bit code. This yielded only thirty-two codes, so it was over-defined into two "shifts", "letters" and "figures". An explicit, unshared shift code prefaced each set of letters and figures. In 1901, Baudot's code was modified by Donald Murray . In the 1930s, teleprinters were produced by Teletype in the US, Creed in Britain and Siemens in Germany. By 1935, message routing
3286-591: The Imperial palace at Tsarskoye Selo and Kronstadt Naval Base . In 1833, Carl Friedrich Gauss , together with the physics professor Wilhelm Weber in Göttingen , installed a 1,200-metre-long (3,900 ft) wire above the town's roofs. Gauss combined the Poggendorff-Schweigger multiplicator with his magnetometer to build a more sensitive device, the galvanometer . To change the direction of
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3392-459: The Morse system became the standard for international communication, using a modified form of Morse's code that had been developed for German railways. Electrical telegraphs were used by the emerging railway companies to provide signals for train control systems, minimizing the chances of trains colliding with each other. This was built around the signalling block system in which signal boxes along
3498-519: The Morse system. As well as the rapid expansion of the use of the telegraphs along the railways, they soon spread into the field of mass communication with the instruments being installed in post offices . The era of mass personal communication had begun. Telegraph networks were expensive to build, but financing was readily available, especially from London bankers. By 1852, National systems were in operation in major countries: The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company, for example,
3604-532: The South Australian government sought help from the Colonial Office in London to find a suitable superintendent of telegraphs. Their choice was Charles Todd , who arrived in Adelaide on 5 November 1855. One of his first tasks was the long-promised Adelaide–Semaphore telegraph line, for which architect James Macgeorge had stolen a march, avoiding Government restrictions by running the (single) wire away from
3710-402: The South Australian government. John McDouall Stuart had previously been commissioned to explore the remote outback to the northern Australian coast through the desert centre, finally after several attempts the northern coast was reached on 24 July 1862. Despite fears before the expedition that vast inland seas may block a route, and although the route was extreme in environmental terms, a path
3816-582: The alphabet, a message could be transmitted by connecting the wire terminals in turn to an electrostatic machine, and observing the deflection of pith balls at the far end. The writer has never been positively identified, but the letter was signed C.M. and posted from Renfrew leading to a Charles Marshall of Renfrew being suggested. Telegraphs employing electrostatic attraction were the basis of early experiments in electrical telegraphy in Europe, but were abandoned as being impractical and were never developed into
3922-546: The application of electricity to communications at a distance. All the known effects of electricity – such as sparks , electrostatic attraction , chemical changes , electric shocks , and later electromagnetism – were applied to the problems of detecting controlled transmissions of electricity at various distances. In 1753, an anonymous writer in the Scots Magazine suggested an electrostatic telegraph. Using one wire for each letter of
4028-553: The armature was intended to make marks on paper tape, but operators learned to interpret the clicks and it was more efficient to write down the message directly. In 1851, a conference in Vienna of countries in the German-Austrian Telegraph Union (which included many central European countries) adopted the Morse telegraph as the system for international communications. The international Morse code adopted
4134-420: The bar, creating a much more powerful electromagnet which could operate a telegraph through the high resistance of long telegraph wires. During his tenure at The Albany Academy from 1826 to 1832, Henry first demonstrated the theory of the 'magnetic telegraph' by ringing a bell through one-mile (1.6 km) of wire strung around the room in 1831. In 1835, Joseph Henry and Edward Davy independently invented
4240-403: The bubbles and could then record the transmitted message. This is in contrast to later telegraphs that used a single wire (with ground return). Hans Christian Ørsted discovered in 1820 that an electric current produces a magnetic field that will deflect a compass needle. In the same year Johann Schweigger invented the galvanometer , with a coil of wire around a compass, that could be used as
4346-697: The chemical and producing readable blue marks in Morse code. The speed of the printing telegraph was 16 and a half words per minute, but messages still required translation into English by live copyists. Chemical telegraphy came to an end in the US in 1851, when the Morse group defeated the Bain patent in the US District Court. For a brief period, starting with the New York–Boston line in 1848, some telegraph networks began to employ sound operators, who were trained to understand Morse code aurally. Gradually,
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4452-447: The communicator. Pressing another key would then release the pointer and the previous key, and re-connect the magneto to the line. These machines were very robust and simple to operate, and they stayed in use in Britain until well into the 20th century. The Morse system uses a single wire between offices. At the sending station, an operator taps on a switch called a telegraph key , spelling out text messages in Morse code . Originally,
4558-771: The construction of a Port Augusta (SA) to Albany (WA) line, allowing the colony of Western Australia to connect up to the Overland Telegraph Line and the undersea cables to Indonesia and beyond. The line was known as the East–West Telegraph Line, or just East-West Telegraph. The Western Australian section of the line commenced in Albany, with a ceremonial activity on 1 January 1875. Work began in earnest in April from Albany through country known to be practically waterless. At this time Western Australia had
4664-592: The cost of a telegraph from Port Augusta to Port Darwin (at that time South Australia administered what was to become the Northern Territory). This relieved the British Australian Telegraph Company of the expense of the overland line to Burketown and it changed its allegiance. At the time, however, the majority of the route of the line had not once been visited by Europeans and presented a huge risk, not least financially, to
4770-557: The creation of an inter-colonial network as being preliminary to that ambition. From 1858 the prospect of a cable being laid from Britain to Australia began to generate competition within the Australian colonies for landing rights. As early as 1854 the year that Samuel McGowan installed the first line in Victoria, British entrepreneurs Brett & Carmichael builders of the Channel cable presented proposals to colonial governments to land
4876-556: The distance of 1,986 mi (3,196 km). The newly built repeater stations on the East-West Line initially included: There were upgrades on the line in the 1890s, which included relocating some of the line further away from the West Australian coastal section. The telegraph operated for 50 years, then, with the introduction of electro-magnetic automatic repeaters and a more easily maintained telegraph line alongside
4982-591: The east coast by 24 October 1861, bringing an end to the Pony Express . France was slow to adopt the electrical telegraph, because of the extensive optical telegraph system built during the Napoleonic era . There was also serious concern that an electrical telegraph could be quickly put out of action by enemy saboteurs, something that was much more difficult to do with optical telegraphs which had no exposed hardware between stations. The Foy-Breguet telegraph
5088-493: The eastern seaboard was sent in early 1963. In 1993, Australia Post discontinued its letter-gram service, which consisted of postage delivery "telegrams"; that is, messages typed as a genuine telegram, and delivered in the same manner (although never transmitted over telegraph lines). In June 2020, the submarine telegraph line between Port Darwin and Java was heritage-listed under the Heritage Act 2011 (NT), and placed on
5194-504: The electric current, he constructed a commutator of his own. As a result, he was able to make the distant needle move in the direction set by the commutator on the other end of the line. At first, Gauss and Weber used the telegraph to coordinate time, but soon they developed other signals and finally, their own alphabet. The alphabet was encoded in a binary code that was transmitted by positive or negative voltage pulses which were generated by means of moving an induction coil up and down over
5300-605: The electric telegraph, visual systems were used, including beacons , smoke signals , flag semaphore , and optical telegraphs for visual signals to communicate over distances of land. An auditory predecessor was West African talking drums . In the 19th century, Yoruba drummers used talking drums to mimic human tonal language to communicate complex messages – usually regarding news of birth, ceremonies, and military conflict – over 4–5 mile distances. From early studies of electricity , electrical phenomena were known to travel with great speed, and many experimenters worked on
5406-521: The first means of radiowave telecommunication, which he began in 1894. In the early 20th century, manual operation of telegraph machines was slowly replaced by teleprinter networks. Increasing use of the telephone pushed telegraphy into only a few specialist uses; its use by the general public dwindled to greetings for special occasions. The rise of the Internet and email in the 1990s largely made dedicated telegraphy networks obsolete. Prior to
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#17328021283285512-421: The impact of Australia's geographic isolation from the rest of the world. By far the largest customers were the Government, business and the press. Before the telegraph, news and mail could take three months to reach England; the telegraph reduced this to around seven hours. As the telegraph spread, provincial and city newspapers published sections by-lined "by Electric Telegraph". Until the 1870s, overseas news
5618-442: The impulses are converted into magnetic fields that operate a mechanical device to make a sound or to move a visual indicator. The operator at the receiving end converts these sounds or signals into a written message. The code system used throughout Australia was the Morse code . Australia's first telegraph line, sponsored by the Victorian government, was erected between Melbourne and Williamstown in 1853 and 1854 by Samuel McGowan ,
5724-453: The line communicate with neighbouring boxes by telegraphic sounding of single-stroke bells and three-position needle telegraph instruments. In the 1840s, the electrical telegraph superseded optical telegraph systems such as semaphores, becoming the standard way to send urgent messages. By the latter half of the century, most developed nations had commercial telegraph networks with local telegraph offices in most cities and towns, allowing
5830-457: The line. For the business community, the telegraph signalled prosperity and wealth. City and country telegraph offices became the centre of trade where orders were placed, banking transacted, market information exchanged. One important duty of the telegraph system was to keep the time of the nation. Time signals were transmitted to all telegraph stations in each colony at one o'clock each day and weather observations were likewise transmitted back to
5936-458: The local pastoral district, it soon had a school, police station, and hotels, but it never prospered beyond township status. The government of South Australia has stated its intention to build a weir at or near Wellington, despite opposition from environmental groups. Under the plan, no water would flow from the Murray into the lower lakes or Coorong during drought or other periods of low flow. This South Australia geography article
6042-434: The long horse and coach journey, a commercial advantage might be gained by Western Australia. The Albany link was completed in 1870. The last Morse code message in the west was sent between Wyndham and Halls Creek in mid 1963. The following table indicates the take-up date of the new technology by the colonial state governments. Charles Todd and Samuel McGowan both envisaged telegraph links to England via India, and saw
6148-491: The magnetic needles inside a coil of wire connected to each pair of conductors. He successfully demonstrated it, showing the feasibility of the electromagnetic telegraph, but only within a lecture hall. In 1825, William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet , with a single winding of uninsulated wire on a piece of varnished iron , which increased the magnetic force produced by electric current. Joseph Henry improved it in 1828 by placing several windings of insulated wire around
6254-457: The main road and railway. Macgeorge's telegraph (which used Cooke and Wheatstone's "Electric" patent equipment) was working by 26 November 1855 and began commercial operation on 10 December. Todd's line, which was more direct and technically superior, and vastly more expensive (even without the observatory and time ball for accurate time signals), went into operation using Henley's "Magnetic" patent in February 1856 and by February 1857 Macgeorge's
6360-477: The mercury dipping electrical relay , in which a magnetic needle is dipped into a pot of mercury when an electric current passes through the surrounding coil. In 1837, Davy invented the much more practical metallic make-and-break relay which became the relay of choice in telegraph systems and a key component for periodically renewing weak signals. Davy demonstrated his telegraph system in Regent's Park in 1837 and
6466-432: The most widely used of its type was the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph , invented in 1837. The second category are armature systems, in which the current activates a telegraph sounder that makes a click; communication on this type of system relies on sending clicks in coded rhythmic patterns. The archetype of this category was the Morse system and the code associated with it, both invented by Samuel Morse in 1838. In 1865,
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#17328021283286572-422: The number of characters it was required to code. In May 1837 they patented their system. The patent recommended five needles, which coded twenty of the alphabet's 26 letters. Samuel Morse independently developed and patented a recording electric telegraph in 1837. Morse's assistant Alfred Vail developed an instrument that was called the register for recording the received messages. It embossed dots and dashes on
6678-414: The ones that became widespread fit into two broad categories. First are the needle telegraphs, in which electric current sent down the telegraph line produces electromagnetic force to move a needle-shaped pointer into position over a printed list. Early needle telegraph models used multiple needles, thus requiring multiple wires to be installed between stations. The first commercial needle telegraph system and
6784-440: The overseas link in the bag with an agreement with the British Australian Telegraph Company to connect their new submarine cable from Java to Port Darwin then overland to Burketown. Desperate for the line to instead be built to Port Augusta then via existing landline to Adelaide the South Australian colonial government successfully outmanoeuvred Queensland in a bid to secure connection to the overseas cable with an offer to finance
6890-415: The pointer reached the position of the depressed key, it would stop and the magneto would be disconnected from the line. The communicator's pointer was geared to the magneto mechanism. The indicator's pointer was moved by a polarised electromagnet whose armature was coupled to it through an escapement . Thus the alternating line voltage moved the indicator's pointer on to the position of the depressed key on
6996-410: The pointers on the dials at both ends set to the start position. The transmitting operator would then press down the key corresponding to the letter to be transmitted. In the base of the communicator was a magneto actuated by a handle on the front. This would be turned to apply an alternating voltage to the line. Each half cycle of the current would advance the pointers at both ends by one position. When
7102-513: The possibilities of rapid global communication in Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph and of some other Electrical Apparatus was the first published work on electric telegraphy and even described the risk of signal retardation due to induction. Elements of Ronalds' design were utilised in the subsequent commercialisation of the telegraph over 20 years later. The Schilling telegraph , invented by Baron Schilling von Canstatt in 1832,
7208-580: The printer decoded this tape to produce alphanumeric characters on plain paper. This was the origin of the Creed High Speed Automatic Printing System, which could run at an unprecedented 200 words per minute. His system was adopted by the Daily Mail for daily transmission of the newspaper contents. With the invention of the teletypewriter , telegraphic encoding became fully automated. Early teletypewriters used
7314-497: The public to send messages (called telegrams ) addressed to any person in the country, for a fee. Beginning in 1850, submarine telegraph cables allowed for the first rapid communication between people on different continents. The telegraph's nearly-instant transmission of messages across continents – and between continents – had widespread social and economic impacts. The electric telegraph led to Guglielmo Marconi 's invention of wireless telegraphy ,
7420-480: The receiving end. The system was very stable and accurate and became accepted around the world. The next improvement was the Baudot code of 1874. French engineer Émile Baudot patented a printing telegraph in which the signals were translated automatically into typographic characters. Each character was assigned a five-bit code, mechanically interpreted from the state of five on/off switches. Operators had to maintain
7526-403: The recently completed transcontinental railway line, the line closed in 1927. The line is listed as a National Engineering Landmark by Engineers Australia as part of its Engineering Heritage Recognition Program . The social impact of the arrival of the telegraph was enormous. Marine archaeologist Dr Silvano Jung said that it caused "a national revolution that started in Darwin", by reducing
7632-450: The return current and one for a signal bell. When at the starting station the operator pressed a key, the corresponding pointer was deflected at the receiving station. Different positions of black and white flags on different disks gave combinations which corresponded to the letters or numbers. Pavel Schilling subsequently improved its apparatus by reducing the number of connecting wires from eight to two. On 21 October 1832, Schilling managed
7738-508: The same time extending inland to the newly established pastoral areas. In 1855 the Electric Telegraph department handled over 50000 telegrams and messages could pass over 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) of telegraph lines within the state. In Queensland the last Morse Code message was to Thursday Island via combined landline and radio link in 1964. A newspaper man Edmund Stirling proposed a scheme to connect Perth with Fremantle
7844-473: The same year, instead of a voltaic pile , Gauss used an induction pulse, enabling him to transmit seven letters a minute instead of two. The inventors and university did not have the funds to develop the telegraph on their own, but they received funding from Alexander von Humboldt . Carl August Steinheil in Munich was able to build a telegraph network within the city in 1835–1836. In 1838, Steinheil installed
7950-426: The sending rate. There were many experiments with moving pointers, and various electrical encodings. However, most systems were too complicated and unreliable. A successful expedient to reduce the cost per message was the development of telegraphese . The first system that did not require skilled technicians to operate was Charles Wheatstone's ABC system in 1840 in which the letters of the alphabet were arranged around
8056-647: The state capitals. Science also benefited. One particular case was the use of the telegraph to determine longitude , when in 1868 Todd, with the help of the Government astronomers in NSW and Victoria, linked up the Observatories with a temporary direct telegraph link. The transit of 15 select stars were observed and recorded on the Melbourne Chronograph via the telegraph from Sydney. With further observations and recordings made near Wentworth , Todd
8162-516: The survey in November 1840 and the first lots were sold in July 1841. Wellington was the original crossing of the River Murray for people, livestock, and goods travelling overland between Adelaide and Melbourne , until a bridge was built at Murray Bridge in 1879. There is still a free government ferry operating here. In 1852-53 much of the gold escorted by South Australian Police from
8268-433: The two clicks. The message was then written out in long-hand. Royal Earl House developed and patented a letter-printing telegraph system in 1846 which employed an alphabetic keyboard for the transmitter and automatically printed the letters on paper at the receiver, and followed this up with a steam-powered version in 1852. Advocates of printing telegraphy said it would eliminate Morse operators' errors. The House machine
8374-416: The use of sound operators eliminated the need for telegraph receivers to include register and tape. Instead, the receiving instrument was developed into a "sounder", an electromagnet that was energized by a current and attracted a small iron lever. When the sounding key was opened or closed, the sounder lever struck an anvil. The Morse operator distinguished a dot and a dash by the short or long interval between
8480-433: The utility of teleprinters by allowing messages that were centrally directed to be automatically retransmitted to their final destination without the need for a human operator. The last telegraph message sent exclusively by land line was sent in mid-1963, and the final message using a land line for any section of its passage was sent in 1964. By 1975 telegram usage had halved from its 1945 level. The last morse code message on
8586-411: Was a connection to the other state capitals. This required a submarine cable and discussions were held between the Victorian and Tasmanian Governments during 1856. At this time the technology to build an undersea cable was in its infancy and overseas experience advised caution. Tasmania and Victoria agreed to share the costs and a contract was signed February 1858. 188 kilometres (117 mi) of cable at
8692-410: Was a five-needle, six-wire system, and had the major advantage of displaying the letter being sent so operators did not need to learn a code. The insulation failed on the underground cables between Paddington and West Drayton, and when the line was extended to Slough in 1843, the system was converted to a one-needle, two-wire configuration with uninsulated wires on poles. The cost of installing wires
8798-514: Was able to establish the position of the 141st degree of east longitude to give a boundary line of the border between South Australia and Victoria. Towards the close of the 19th century, Australia had become one of the largest users of the telegraph. Following the federation of Australia in 1901, the Postmaster-General's Department was established to take over from the states all postal and telegraphic services and administer them on
8904-415: Was an early needle telegraph . It had a transmitting device that consisted of a keyboard with 16 black-and-white keys. These served for switching the electric current. The receiving instrument consisted of six galvanometers with magnetic needles, suspended from silk threads . The two stations of Schilling's telegraph were connected by eight wires; six were connected with the galvanometers, one served for
9010-435: Was approved for a telegraph between the imperial palace at Peterhof and the naval base at Kronstadt . However, the project was cancelled following Schilling's death in 1837. Schilling was also one of the first to put into practice the idea of the binary system of signal transmission. His work was taken over and developed by Moritz von Jacobi who invented telegraph equipment that was used by Tsar Alexander III to connect
9116-475: Was awarded the contract for the sections from Port Augusta to Port Lincoln and from there to Fowlers Bay . The third section, taking the line to Eucla , was undertaken by the Posts and Telegraph Department itself and supervised by R. R. Knuckey . On 12 January 1876 the section from Port Augusta to Port Lincoln was finished, followed by the continuation to Fowlers Bay on 26 September 1876. Fowlers Bay to Eucla link
9222-551: Was begun in July 1876 with 38 men and 89 horses, under Knuckey. Supplies were held at Fowlers Bay and all equipment and provisions had to be obtained from here or another base set up at Eucla. The work was finally completed on 15 July 1877, meeting the line being built from the west at Eucla, a location close to the WA/SA border, after some very substantial hardships and logistical challenges had been encountered during construction. The line became operational on 8 December 1877, spanning
9328-477: Was built via Wellington, South Australia and was opened in 1861. A telegraph line connecting Hobart and Launceston was completed in 1857. Connections were quickly built to remote areas through dense terrain from Launceston to George Town in March 1858 and easier lines from Hobart to Mt Nelson in July, and Low Head in October 1858. Again, like South Australia the key to future growth in trade and commerce
9434-533: Was considerably modified from the original American Morse code , and was based on a code used on Hamburg railways ( Gerke , 1848). A common code was a necessary step to allow direct telegraph connection between countries. With different codes, additional operators were required to translate and retransmit the message. In 1865, a conference in Paris adopted Gerke's code as the International Morse code and
9540-658: Was created in 1852 in Rochester, New York and eventually became the Western Union Telegraph Company . Although many countries had telegraph networks, there was no worldwide interconnection. Message by post was still the primary means of communication to countries outside Europe. Telegraphy was introduced in Central Asia during the 1870s. A continuing goal in telegraphy was to reduce the cost per message by reducing hand-work, or increasing
9646-523: Was eventually adopted. This was a two-needle system using two signal wires but displayed in a uniquely different way to other needle telegraphs. The needles made symbols similar to the Chappe optical system symbols, making it more familiar to the telegraph operators. The optical system was decommissioned starting in 1846, but not completely until 1855. In that year the Foy-Breguet system was replaced with
9752-508: Was extended to Albury on the NSW/Victorian border, a distance of 322 kilometres (200 mi), in October 1858. This line connected with a line from Melbourne thus linking the two capitals. At this time Sydney – Melbourne and Adelaide became connected by telegraph. In 1867 the first direct line linking Adelaide and Sydney was opened. Queensland's separation from New South Wales created a position for Superintendent of Telegraphs which
9858-669: Was far less limited than the momentary discharge of an electrostatic machine , which with Leyden jars were the only previously known human-made sources of electricity. Another very early experiment in electrical telegraphy was an "electrochemical telegraph" created by the German physician , anatomist and inventor Samuel Thomas von Sömmering in 1809, based on an earlier 1804 design by Spanish polymath and scientist Francisco Salva Campillo . Both their designs employed multiple wires (up to 35) to represent almost all Latin letters and numerals. Thus, messages could be conveyed electrically up to
9964-656: Was filled by W.J Cracknell, the brother of the New South Wales Superintendent. Tenders were called for a line from Brisbane to the NSW border in September 1860, completed to Ipswich in April 1861 and working to the border by November 1861. This connected to a recently completed line from Sydney. Now four state capitals were connected. Lines were pushed out from Brisbane north to Rockhampton, reached Port Denison (Bowen) in 1866, and Cardwell in June 1869. At
10070-484: Was granted a patent on 4 July 1838. Davy also invented a printing telegraph which used the electric current from the telegraph signal to mark a ribbon of calico infused with potassium iodide and calcium hypochlorite . The first working telegraph was built by the English inventor Francis Ronalds in 1816 and used static electricity. At the family home on Hammersmith Mall , he set up a complete subterranean system in
10176-522: Was henceforth the international standard. The US, however, continued to use American Morse code internally for some time, hence international messages required retransmission in both directions. In the United States, the Morse/Vail telegraph was quickly deployed in the two decades following the first demonstration in 1844. The overland telegraph connected the west coast of the continent to
10282-427: Was implemented in Germany during the 1930s as a network used to communicate within the government. At the rate of 45.45 (±0.5%) baud – considered speedy at the time – up to 25 telex channels could share a single long-distance telephone channel by using voice frequency telegraphy multiplexing , making telex the least expensive method of reliable long-distance communication. Automatic teleprinter exchange service
10388-539: Was installed on the Euston to Camden Town section of Robert Stephenson 's London and Birmingham Railway in 1837 for signalling rope-hauling of locomotives. It was rejected in favour of pneumatic whistles. Cooke and Wheatstone had their first commercial success with a system installed on the Great Western Railway over the 13 miles (21 km) from Paddington station to West Drayton in 1838. This
10494-600: Was introduced into Canada by CPR Telegraphs and CN Telegraph in July 1957 and in 1958, Western Union started to build a Telex network in the United States. Wellington, South Australia Wellington is a township in South Australia , Australia on the Murray River (River Murray in South Australia) just upstream of where it empties into Lake Alexandrina . Its postcode is 5259. Wellington
10600-526: Was opened in 1869. It was a great success and the cable was duplicated in 1885 and again in 1909. The New South Wales government commenced construction of the Sydney to Liverpool telegraph line, a distance of 32 kilometres (20 mi), which opened on 30 December 1857. Edward Charles Cracknell was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Telegraphs in January 1858 and Superintendent in 1861. The Liverpool line
10706-520: Was possible. A contract was let in 1870 and, following immense physical hardship and considerable logistical challenge the Overland Telegraph (the Port Augusta to Port Darwin telegraph line) was completed on 22 August 1872. To build the line to Darwin 36,000 poles were used to close the nearly 3,000 kilometre gap. In 1874 the South and Western Australian legislatures voted the sums necessary for
10812-414: Was redundant. Critical to the progress of South Australia was a connection to Melbourne and in 1857 Todd made arrangements with Samuel McGowan to build a uniform system between the capitals. Both Todd and McGowan dreamt that their proposed intercolonial interconnection would one day be a key link in a chain leading to 'a step in the direction of our ultimate telegraph communications, via India, with England,
10918-420: Was telegraphed from Adelaide, being the first port of call with telegraphic connection to the eastern states . This gave Adelaide a strategic and financial boost. Charles Todd commented: We had only one intercolonial wire and on the arrival of every English mail, there was an exciting amount of rivalry between the different newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne, great efforts being made to secure first possession of
11024-469: Was the last great barrier to full automation. Large telegraphy providers began to develop systems that used telephone-like rotary dialling to connect teletypewriters. These resulting systems were called "Telex" (TELegraph EXchange). Telex machines first performed rotary-telephone-style pulse dialling for circuit switching , and then sent data by ITA2 . This "type A" Telex routing functionally automated message routing. The first wide-coverage Telex network
11130-426: Was ultimately more economically significant than the cost of training operators. The one-needle telegraph proved highly successful on British railways, and 15,000 sets were in use at the end of the nineteenth century; some remained in service in the 1930s. The Electric Telegraph Company , the world's first public telegraphy company, was formed in 1845 by financier John Lewis Ricardo and Cooke. Wheatstone developed
11236-533: Was used on four main American telegraph lines by 1852. The speed of the House machine was announced as 2600 words an hour. David Edward Hughes invented the printing telegraph in 1855; it used a keyboard of 26 keys for the alphabet and a spinning type wheel that determined the letter being transmitted by the length of time that had elapsed since the previous transmission. The system allowed for automatic recording on
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