The electric telegraph comes to Maitland
The electric telegraph was one of the most influential inventions of the nineteenth century. Its first version was built by the English inventor Francis Ronald in 1816, but the British Government rejected the invention as ‘totally unnecessary’ and it lay dormant for over twenty years until the need for communication faster than physically carrying a message resurrected the idea. William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone of the United Kingdom patented the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph in 1837, a number of elements of Ronald’s design being used in this new electric telegraph.
The Cooke and Wheatstone 1837 five-wire needle telegraph
Later, in 1837, the American Samuel Morse patented a recording electric telegraph and he and Alfred Vale developed the system now known as Morse code. Soon, land-based telegraphic systems were in use and the possibility of submarine cables linking continents was being considered. These cables were to permit virtually instantaneous communication between distant locations, effectively bringing them much closer together.
A Morse Key sends out a series of dots and dashes (Morse Code) representing letters and numbers
(RadioWorld)
Cables laid, internationally and within Australia
The first undersea cable was laid in 1850, connecting Britain and France. Within a few years, cables had been laid across the Atlantic and through the Red Sea to India. Samuel McGowan brought telegraphy to Australia in 1853, connecting Melbourne and the Port of Williamstown. Melbourne and Adelaide were connected to Sydney by 1858 and to Tasmania by 1859.
The Electric Telegraph Bill was passed by the NSW Parliament on 17 March 1857, but it was not until 11 September 1858 that a proposal was made to put in a line to the Hunter. On 21 February 1859, a tender was let for the erection of a telegraph line:
from a point upon or near the Blacktown Road to Windsor, and thence via Wiseman’s Ferry, Wollombi and West Maitland to Newcastle.
Work began on 6 June 1859, erecting poles and installing a single uninsulated wire to carry the signal. A length of insulated ‘Bass Strait’ cable was laid under the waters of the Hawkesbury River at Wisemans Ferry. By mid-September the wire had progressed along the Great Northern Road to within 22 miles (35 km) of Wollombi, and it reached Bishops Bridge in November 1859.
Posts were erected along the railway line from Maitland to Newcastle and completed by mid-December 1859. However, the opening was delayed by an accident that destroyed part of the insulation at the Hawkesbury crossing. Celebrations were the order of the day and the Maitland Mercury reported on the Electric Telegraph Ball, held on Tuesday, 17 January, 1860, at the Caledonian Hotel in Newcastle.
On 23 January 1860, the electric telegraph was opened to the Maitland public. Maitland now had telegraphic communication with Newcastle, Morpeth, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and Adelaide.
The telegraph office was originally housed in the Maitland Railway Station as the most suitable public building in the town. The sending and receiving instrument was a double-needle magneto-electric telegraph, manufactured by Messrs Henley and Forster of London and patented in 1848. This instrument did not require batteries. A pulse of electric current was generated by pressing levers on either side, rotating a coil between the poles of a strong magnet. The resulting electrical pulse was transmitted along the wire to the receiving station.
The Henley double-needle magneto-electric telegraph instrument as used in Maitland. The outer wooden case has been removed, showing the inner workings
Soon, all major cities in Australia were connected by cable and colonial governments began to think about connecting to the rest of the world.
The Maitland Mercury of 26 January 1860 p2 gave a comprehensive word picture of the Henley instrument and the operating system of the electric telegraph. Part of the report reads:
…When a message is being transmitted the electro-magnet exerts its attractive power, the end of the bar is drawn down upon it, and the point at the opposite end presses against the paper, drawing the continuous line before mentioned. By means of very simple and ingenious contrivances the magnetism of the electro-magnet is alternately destroyed and renewed by the operations of the transmitter of the message at the other end of the line, and thus the point alternately presses upon the paper for a longer or shorter time, or ceases to press altogether, and, instead of a continuous line, a series of dots, short bars, and longer bars appears upon the surface, similar to the following: . -- ----. Combinations of these marks represent letters and words.
On 22 August 1872, the Overland Telegraph Line from Adelaide to Darwin was completed, a distance of 1988 miles (3200 km). The completion of the submarine cable to Darwin from Java two months later had a huge psychological impact on the Australian population, as news from Britain and Europe arrived in the colonies the day it happened. This proved to be a great advantage to the newspapers of the day, reporting ‘instant’ news from ‘home’.
Maitland was now connected to the world.
Overland Telegraph Station Office, Tennant Creek
(Lawrie Henderson)
The telegraph station, residence and outbuildings, built of local stone, have been preserved as part of the Tennent Creek Telegraph Station Historic Reserve.
Changes to the telegraph in Maitland
It was soon realised that the railway station site was inconvenient both to the public and to the businesses of Maitland. On 1 May 1860, a notice appeared in the Maitland Mercury calling for tenders
from persons willing to dispose of a site suitable for an Electric Telegraph Station, between the Northumberland Hotel and Maitland Mercury office.
A site was offered in High St on the river side of the Bourke St intersection, and excavations began. The building was completed by the end of October, and on the night of Saturday, 2 November, the line was cut at the railway station and the telegraph resumed on the following Monday morning at the new office.
Tenders were also called on 5 June 1860 for the continuation of the telegraph line from West Maitland to Murrurundi, Tamworth, Armidale and to the Queensland border.
Some in West Maitland were dissatisfied with the telegraph office being separate from the post office and an editorial in the Mercury of 23rd August 1860, read:
At West Maitland the contractor has just commenced preparations for the electric telegraph station; and at Newcastle a telegraph station is also to be built forthwith. We may note here that we were informed yesterday, by an inhabitant of West Maitland, that the Newcastle telegraph station is to be so built that the post office is to be accommodated under the same roof; and he urged that the same provision should be made at West Maitland. If the feeling in favour of this junction of the two offices in one building is general here, we would suggest that no time should be lost in getting up a memorial on the subject, before the building has too far advanced. It may be well to point out that erecting public buildings on too small a scale in such a rapidly growing town as West Maitland is short sighted policy.
Many Maitland businessmen and citizens wanted accurate time-keeping and a petition was sent to the colonial government asking it to install a time gun at the railway station. The gun was to be fired daily at 1pm precisely (except on Sundays) on a telegraph signal received from the Sydney Observatory. A reply from the Secretary for Public Works objected to a gun being located so near a public thoroughfare and provided the option for a time regulator (that is, a clock) to be installed in the telegraph office instead. The Sydney time gun was inaugurated in 1858 and was a cannon fired at 1pm and the ‘time ball’ dropped from the top of a mast, on a signal from the Observatory. It served for ships’ masters to set their chronometers precisely for navigation purposes and for local businessmen to check the accuracy of their pocket watches. It was said that the merchants would step into the street, listen for the gun, check their watch, slip it into their pocket and secretly adjust it on returning to the office.
The Newcastle time gun tradition continues today, with a daily 1pm firing of a gun at Fort Scratchley, but the time ball on the Customs House tower no longer operates.
Businesses accepted the new technology with enthusiasm, as transactions with distant clients and contractors could be completed with great punctuality. As well, the Money Order system had begun operation, thus enabling transactions to be renumerated over the electric telegraph. Newspaper editors could receive ‘instant’ news items from global sources and the public benefited by not having to wait weeks or months for news from across colonial borders or from overseas. In order to expedite use of the electric telegraph, the following notice appeared in the Government Gazette and was repeated by the Mercury on 31 December 1861:
In order to facilitate business transacted through the electric telegraph, notice is hereby given, that the public will be permitted to append the words, ‘Reply quickly by Telegraph’ and ‘Reply paid here’, free of charge to telegrams requiring an immediate answer and to interrogatory messages in which the person addressed is in no way interested or benefitted by such despatch.
By January 1863, telegraphic traffic had become so congested that tenders were called to install a second line from Sydney to Maitland. At the same time problems were occurring with the underwater cable at Wisemans Ferry and it was decided to construct a tall mast to carry an overhead wire high above the river. The precaution was taken to add a lightning conductor to protect the instruments (and the operators) from danger. The second wire reached Maitland in mid-November that year.
By June 1866, the telegraph was spreading its tentacles throughout the Hunter Valley and was connecting Murrurundi with Mudgee and the towns of New England. Smaller towns and rural areas were now being connected. From only the main urban centres and places near them having the telegraph, it was becoming universally available.
The Post Office connection
To this time, post office services in Maitland (which had been initiated in 1829 and managed by Mrs Daly, Post Mistress) had always been run out of private premises. A call was made to build a post office befitting the second most populous and important town in the colony. The new Post Office, designed by the NSW Colonial Architect’s Office under James Barnet, was built on the corner of High St and Bourke St opposite the telegraph office. This office opened for business at noon on Monday, 10 October 1881, and was deemed by the populace ‘to have an attractive appearance’.
West Maitland Post Office, corner High St and Bourke St, about 1890
Note the telegraph pole on the right, with many crosstrees each carrying telegraph wires
The telegraph office remained separate for another 19 years before it was amalgamated with the Post Office. This necessitated the enlargement of the Post Office building to double its size to accommodate the extra equipment and staff. The work was carried out by Charles Baker of Hamilton and completed by July 1900. The Mercury waxed lyrically about the architecture of the enlarged building, but was somewhat displeased with the ‘kind of skillion room at the back’ regarding it as ‘an unpardonable and unnecessary blot’. The skillion room, which housed the telephone exchange, has long since been removed revealing the Post Office as we see it today.
Francis Ronald, the original inventor of the electric telegraph, was knighted in 1870 by Queen Victoria for services to telegraphy. A notice in the Mercury of 7 June,1870, celebrated with the line: ‘Mr. Francis Ronald, the original inventor of the electric telegraph, has been knighted.’
On the 23 August, 2022, Australia Post issued a stamp to commemorate 150 years of The Overland Telegraph
References
Bellis, Mary, The History of the Electric Telegraph and Telegraphy, ThoughtCo, 2019.
Henderson, Lawrence, Cutty Sark: the Australian Connection, Maitland Regional Museum, Maitland, 2018.
Henderson, Lawrence, ‘Our past: the electric telegraph comes to Maitland’, Maitland Mercury, 13 November 2020.
Henderson, Lawrence, ‘Our past: the electric telegraph and amalgamation with the post office’, Maitland Mercury, 20 November 2020.
Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser: ‘The Electric Telegraph Bill’, 19 March, 1857; ‘Electric Telegraph to Bathurst and the Hunter’, 26 February, 1859; ‘The Electric Telegraph’, 22 November, 1859; ‘The Electric Telegraph’, 15 December, 1859; ‘Electric Telegraph’, 5 June, 1860; ‘The Town Time’, 30 August, 1860; ‘The West Maitland Post-Office’, 25 June, 1861; ‘Telegraphic Improvements’, 31 January, 1863; ‘Opening of the New Post-office’, 11 October, 1881.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to the Australian National Library’s Trove service for access to past copies of local newspapers.
