The Telegraph

As we learnt in today's episode of The People's Post, after their first appearance in the 1830s the electric and Morse telegraphs became a wonder of the Victorian age. When the first transatlantic cable was successfully completed in 1858, the obstacle of distance appeared to be tamed. A new era of instant communication was at hand. But telegraphy was still in its infancy, operated over disparate networks run by competing companies. It was also expensive and beyond many ordinary people's means. A movement had begun to change this, and in 1865 Frank Scudamore, Secretary to the Post Office, began to explore whether the Post Office might build a national telegraph system and offer it as a public service at affordable rates. He found that most of Britain did not have access to a decent service and most rural areas had no service at all.

Scudamore became convinced that the government should nationalise the existing systems and place them under Post Office control. By integrating and expanding the service and by slashing the price of messages, he believed demand for the service would grow and that the telegraphs could then be improved on an efficient and profitable basis. His supporters argued that this was the socially progressive course of action, but opposition in the press and in parliament was fierce. Some argued that this would enable universal state surveillance, a throwback to the Civil War use of the posts for political censorship and control. Others opposed the whole idea of nationalising private enterprise on political and economic grounds. The affair in fact became the first great national debate on the dangers and merits of nationalising industry in modern British history.

In 1868, Scudamore's efforts culminated in success when an Act was passed authorising his plan. The following year 6.5 million telegrams were sent. Within ten years this had risen to 30 million and by the turn of the century it was 90 million. But if the uptake of the new telegraphic messaging was rapid, it was also a transition made in the teeth of sustained opposition. The Post Office struggled to win over difficult landowners and others suspicious of their line-building programmes and eventually Scudamore himself became embroiled in a scandal over the finances of the expansion. Nevertheless, his enterprise had shown new ways in which the extraordinary power of new technology could be harnessed by the State, opening up new social and economic facilities, a theme that would continue during the twentieth century.

For further reading see Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet (1998). The BPMA library at the Royal Mail Archive holds a number of other books such as HG Sellars, Short History of the Telegraph (1934) and HR Meyer, The British State Telegraphs (1907). There are many original records about telegraphy at the BPMA, such as historic newspaper articles in POST 111. The BT Archives are also home to many original records relating to the establishment of telegraphy, see www.connected-earth.com. Alison Bean's blog Telegraphs and mass communication gives further information on this topic.