Lords of Lightning:
    a directory for telegraph researchers
 
 

“Lords of lightning we, by land or wave
  The mystic agent serves us as our slave”

—Henry Schütz Wilson, one-time assistant secretary of the Electric Telegraph Company, Alpinist and writer. Couplet composed for a soirée of the Society of Telegraph Engineers

Web Sites: Sites whose primary purpose is telegraph history or research:
    Distant Writing - Electric Telegraphy in Britain
    History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
    Donard de Cogan's Papers - original research on aspects of cable and telegraph history
    The Electromagnetic Telegraph - the development of International Morse Code, and related matters
    Telegraph Equipment - Brooke Clarke's reference website has historical and patent information on the development of the telegraph
    Telegraph-History - John Casale's articles on U.S. telegraph history
    Telegraph Lore - Greg Raven's site on Morse telegraphy
  Related websites with useful content:
    Computer Networking and Telecommunications Research Group - Salford University’s communications research and outreach project
   
Museums: Museums whose primary focus is telegraphy
(landline or cable):
    French Cable Station Museum - Orleans, Massachusetts
    Heart’s Content Cable Station Provincial Historic Site - Newfoundland
    Porthcurno Telegraph Museum - Cornwall
    Valentia Heritage Centre - Ireland
   
  Museums with some telegraphy equipment
(landline, cable, or radio) on display:
    American Museum of Radio & Electricity - Bellingham, WA
    Locust Grove - Poughkeepsie, NY: Samuel Morse Historic Site
    Musée des arts et métiers - Paris: An extensive collection of telegraph and cable material, only a small selection of which is on display.
See catalogue entries for cable, or search the objects catalogue for specific terms.
    Museum of the History of Science - Oxford: The Marconi collection and some cable material. See below for the Marconi archives
    Powerhouse Museum - Sydney, Australia - has a small collection of cable samples and related material
    Resources for Learning in Scotland - telegraph resources in Scottish museums, libraries, and archives
    Royal Navy Museum of Radar and Communications - at HMS Collingwood near Southampton, England. Advance appointment required - see site for details
    Science Museum - London - has a large amount of early material, but much of it not on display nor listed in the on-line catalogue. The associated Science & Society Picture Library may also be useful.
See also the Science Museum Library catalogue.
    Smithsonian Institution - Washington DC
   
Archives: Archives and Libraries with significant collections
of telegraph books and documents:
    BT Archives (London). British telecommunications history: library; original source documents, including early records of the private telegraph companies; photographs, films and videos
    Cable & Wireless Archive - a large collection of documents and artifacts (mostly held at Porthcurno; see above), catalogued at the National Archive, London
    The Imperial College and Science Museum Libraries (London and Wroughton) have some early submarine cable and telegraphy manuscript material
    The Institution of Civil Engineers (London) has some early submarine cable and telegraphy material in its library. The Virtual Library offers on-line access to archive material, although membership or a subscription is required to view much of the content
    The Institution of Engineering and Technology (London) has important collections of early submarine cable and telegraphy material.
Archive Catalogue direct link: search for “submarine cables” and “submarine telegraphy”
    The International Telecommunications Union (Geneva) has been co-ordinating worldwide communications since 1865. The ITU's website provides PDF documents from all international conferences held from 1865 through 2006, although many are in French only
    Kelvin letters and papers at the University of Glasgow
    King's College, London has an archive of material bequeathed by Charles Wheatstone on his death in 1875, although much of his apparatus has been dispersed
    Library and Archives Canada has telegraph and cable material distributed throughout its collections
    Library of Congress (USA) has telegraph and cable material distributed throughout its collections
    Maps - the David Rumsey Historical Maps collection includes many with early cable routes shown
    The Marconi Archive (Bodleian Library, Oxford) catalogue is now on line
    The National Library of Australia has telegraph maps, images, and other material on line
    The New York Public Library Research Libraries have telegraph and cable material, mostly at the main branch and the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL). Search Subject: "Cables, Submarine", for example
    Documents from the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (Telcon) are held by:
  National Maritime Museum (London): Archive Catalogue (search for "Telegraph Construction")
  Porthcurno Telegraph Museum (Cornwall): Alcatel (Telcon) archive
  Merseyside Maritime Museum (Liverpool): included in the BICC archive
  Science Museum (Swindon branch): Berner (Telcon) collection (PDF)
  Allan Green has written an excellent summary of the history of Telcon and its successor companies, which includes additional information on access to archive material (54KB PDF)
    The Smithsonian Institution Library (Washington DC) has a large collection of works on the history of electricity which includes much telegraph material
    Tyne & Wear Archives Service (England) has the archives of cable ship builder Swan Hunter, and of other ship builders in the area.
   
Catalogues: Trade catalogue archives which may include telegraph equipment
    Catalogue of the Special Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at the South Kensington Museum. The applied electricity section of this 1877 catalogue describes the most significant and important collection of early telegraph instruments and material ever assembled
    CNAM, Paris: Scientific instrument trade catalogues from the Alain Brieux collection
    Instruments for Science: Scientific Instrument Trade Literature at the Smithsonian Institution
    Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
    The Scientific Instrument Commission has a comprehensive directory of trade catalogue sites
   
Collections: Private collections of telegraph equipment and documents:
    K0IU Telegraph Collection
    K4TJP Telegraph Collection 
    Morsekey.net - Eliseo Chiarucci’s collection of Italian and other instruments, telegraph maps and books (in Italian)
    Signa Telegraph Collection - Gustavo Coll, Uruguay
    The Sparks Telegraph Key Review - Russ Kleinman's collection
    Telegraph Instruments of Europe - Fons vanden Berghen's collection
    The Telegraph Office - Neal McEwen’s collection
    The Vibroplex Collector's Page - Randy Cole’s collection
    W1TP Telegraph & Scientific Instrument Museums - Tom Perera's collection
   
Search: Useful search resources, including newspaper archives:
    British History Online- digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. A number of references to cable and telegraph may be found using search
    British Newspapers 1800-1900 indexes a number of newspapers. Pay-per-view, but searching may reveal useful sources.
    The British Colonist Archive 1858-1910 has many articles about cables, particularly those of the West Coast of Canada.
Thanks to the Rough Radio website for this link.
    The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Archive 1841-1902 has some articles about cables, mainly those terminating at New York.
    California Digital Newspaper Collection (from 1849 on) has many articles about cables terminating in California, and worldwide.
    Google Book Search- includes many early works on telegraphy and cables
Google Book Search
    Google News Archive Search - searches multiple on-line newspaper archives.
    The Guardian and Observer (UK) Archives have many articles about cables and cable laying, but are pay-per-view. Searching is free.
    Internet Archive- the text section includes some works on telegraphy and cables; the Prelinger Archive has a number of short films on telegraphy and communications which may be viewed on line or downloaded
    National Library of Australia Newspapers - not just Australian news, as many articles were reprinted from papers in London and elsewhere in the British Empire.
    The New York Times Archive 1851-1980 has many articles about cable laying, particularly early expeditions and significant later projects. Some later content requires a subscription
    The London Gazette - The Official Newspaper of Record carries official, regulatory and legal information. Many interesting snippets may be found here, back to well before the electric telegraph era.
    The Times (London) Archive 1785-1985 has many articles about cables and cable laying, but is pay-per-view. Searching is free; some libraries have subscription access to the full content.
     
  Patent search:
    British & European Patents at IPEXL Patent Search
    US Patents at Google Patents
    US Patent Models at the Smithsonian. A new index to the museum's collection of over 10,000 models includes many telegraph-related inventions. Two volumes, downloadable in PDF format at no charge.
     
  United States Historical Maps & Charts:
    Office of Coast Survey Historical Map & Chart Project - some charts may show cable routes and landings off the coast of the Unites States
     
  Worldwide library catalogue search:
    Worldcat - consolidated catalogues of many, but not all, libraries worldwide
     
  Ship and Crew search resources:
    Cableships at Atlantic-Cable.com
    Crew Agreements- resources for finding crew agreements, including those for many cable expeditions of the 19th and 20th centuries
    The Crew List Index Project- further resources for finding ship information and crew agreements
    Crew List Name Search - subscription service at Find My Past, but searches are free
   
Ship search at the Mariners website (useful for finding Official Numbers)
Google
Search Mariners website
   

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Thanks to Steve Roberts for suggesting the name
Webmaster: Bill Burns @ atlantic-cable.com
Last site update: 14 July, 2010