Former assistant curator trainee Jasmin Taylor explores how the history and unheard voices behind the undersea telegraph cable are replicated in modern communication technology.
Wireless technology and data being stored in “The Cloud” may lead you to think information is pinged around the globe via satellites. Only a very small portion is. Instant communication, like texts, phone calls and websites, is made possible by copper and fibre-optic undersea cables which carry data between countries.
97% of the internet travels through these cables. All the undersea fibre-optic cables across the world span approximately 1.2 million km (750,000 miles): combined they could wrap around Earth 30 times!
Subsea fibre-optic cables are critical infrastructures that support our global networks. They are essential for our communication, commerce, government and military functions because they securely transport messages and information. The importance of undersea cables means control or disruption of them can have political and economic implications.
Undersea cables were initially created in the late 1800s to improve the speed of the electric telegraph. The telegraph was the precursor of all current telecommunication systems. It would send information by making and breaking electrical connections in morse code. This method of communication could send messages much faster than physically transporting them.
The materials used to create telegraph cables, and the countries they connected, reflected Britain’s Imperial global power.
The first international telegraph crossed the English Channel, connecting Britain to France by cable in 1851. It was developed by brothers John and Jacob Brett and Thomas Crampton and coated in gutta percha. Gutta percha was a key material used to make the first telegraph cables. It is a natural plastic, made from the sap of trees which grow in present day Peninsular Malaysia (historically Malaya).
It was introduced to Europeans in 1656 when John Tradescant the Younger, a botanist, collector and royal gardener, brought samples back to London after one his travels to a British colony.
In 1832 Europeans learned how to fashion gutta percha into objects. It could be softened in hot water, then moulded into shape before being left to cool and harden. Gutta percha is waterproof which made it an ideal material to insulate cables. It was only supplanted by the discovery of polythene in the 1930s.
The laying of the telegraph cable between Britain and France preceded a partnership between the USA and Britain, which eventually led to the successful laying of the Transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866.
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