Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Co
1869 John Pender formed a second telegraph company - the Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Co.
John Pender intended to land the Indo-European cable at Falmouth, (thus giving the company its name) but the high risk of damage from shipping anchors caused him to change his mind, as the port was so busy, so Porthcurno, in Cornwall, was chosen as the landing place.
Telcon were awarded the contract for manufacture and laying. They sub-contracted much of the cable manufacture to W. T. Henley while carrying out the laying themselves.
1870 Cable laying started at Malta on 14 May - 1150 nautical miles (nm) of cable were laid to Gibraltar; then 366 nm from Gibraltar to Carcavelos, Portugal. The last section, Carcavelos to Porthcurno, Cornwall, 824 nm long, was started on 2 June, arriving at Porthcurno six days later.
1870 The line to India was completed and 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.
1871 Sir James Anderson was managing director of the company[1]
1872 It was agreed that the Company, together with the British-Indian Submarine Telegraph Co 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[2]
Note:
- See: Eastern Telegraph Co for fuller version.
See Also
Sources of Information
- [1] History of the Atlantic Cable and Submarine Telegraphy