Submarine telegraph
Original title: Telégrafo Submarino
Describes the submarine telegraph cables linking Madeira with mainland Portugal, Cape Verde, Britain and South Africa, and the companies that laid them.
Madeira is linked to Portugal (Carcavelos) by two cables of the ‘Western Telegraph Company’, and to São Vicente in Cape Verde by two cables of the same company and one of the ‘Eastern Telegraph Company’. This last cable comes directly from Great Britain and continues to South Africa, touching at São Vicente in Cape Verde, Ascension Island and St Helena.
The ‘Western Telegraph Company’ replaced the ‘Brazilian Telegraph Company’, which established the telegraph service between Madeira and the mainland in 1874, as stated on page 172 of volume I of this Elucidário, and which in 1883 or 1884 laid a second cable along the same route as the first. As for the submarine cable of the ‘Eastern Telegraph Company’, it was established under a contract signed on 21 September 1908. (1921) See Submarine cable.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 03-
Public telegraph service between Madeira and mainland Portugal opened by submarine cable laid by the Brazilian Telegraph Company, with Sir William Thomson present; the inauguration was celebrated in Funchal with illuminations.
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A second submarine telegraph cable linking Madeira to the mainland was laid along the route of the first.
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A contract was signed for an Eastern Telegraph Company submarine cable.
Place
Places mentioned · 06
- Ascension Island
United Kingdom. Atlantic island touched by the Eastern Telegraph Company cable.
Ascensão (Ascension) is an Atlantic island touched by the Eastern Telegraph Company's submarine cable. It has been proposed as the inspiration for the Island of Love.
- Carcavelos
Portugal. Mainland Portuguese landing point of the two Western Telegraph Company cables from Madeira.
Mainland Portuguese landing point of the two Western Telegraph Company cables from Madeira.
- Great Britain
United Kingdom. Origin of the Eastern Telegraph Company cable passing through Madeira.
Origin of the Eastern Telegraph Company cable passing through Madeira.
- São Vicente
Cape Verde. Cape Verdean island connected to Madeira by three submarine cables.
Cape Verdean island connected to Madeira by three submarine cables.
- South Africa
Terminus of the Eastern Telegraph Company cable.
South Africa is recorded as the place where Prince Eugène Napoléon died in the Zulu War. It was the terminus of the Eastern Telegraph Company cable. It imported Madeiran wicker and osiers before developing its own wickerwork industry, and emigrants living there gave the Estreito da Calheta clock.
- St Helena
United Kingdom. Atlantic island touched by the Eastern Telegraph Company cable.
Santa Helena is the Atlantic island of Napoleon's exile, death and burial until 1840. That year a French mission, the Belle Poule expedition, exhumed his body there. The island was also touched by the Eastern Telegraph Company cable.