Professor Nigel Linge: Building The Worlds First Global Network

 

 

IN 1837 Charles Whetstone and William Cooke demonstrated the needle telegraph system to send messages on the London Bimingham railway system. The Magnetic Telegraph Company approached John Pender, a Scot who had moved to Manchester and become a succesful cotton merchant, for funds and in 1856 he invested in the company and joined the board.  They laid the first succesful cable in May 1853 between Scotland and Ireland and a second one in 1854.

John Pender was one of a group of 345 men who invested £1000.00 each.  The English and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company merged with the British Telegraph Company and John Pender became Director of Atlantic Telegraph Company.  The first cable laying was a failure and the British Treasury established an enquiry in 1860 which had far reaching importance for the future of the  technology.  The company was allowed to raise 2 Million pounds.

In 1866 the Great Eastern succeeded in joining the old world with the new by an operational transatlantic cable.  John Pender realised the importance of this to the cotton trade and formed the British-India Submarine Telegraph Company.  Within the next decade Cable and Wireless established a network that linked the globe- the basis of our modern communication system.