Australiana - 2UE - August 24, 2008

Jim’s Australiana Spot – 2UE - August 24, 2008

How Australia was linked to the world …by CABLE

Background Trivia

	Cobb & Co carried mail around Australia from around 1863 till 1924
	In 1856 a regular monthly steamship service was established, carrying mail from Australia to England
	Trains carried mail to bush from 1860s and between Sydney and Melbourne from 1883
	Air mail between Sydney and Melbourne began in 1914

But while all this was happening …A NEW TECHNOLOGY had appeared ..TELEGRAPH!


Typical of poles on the Overland Telegraph Route	Repeater Station Alice Springs circa 1880

Q	Sydney’s telegraph receiving station was at La Perouse where the cable came out of the sea – where did the first cable come FROM?
A	ADELAIDE! To link Sydney to world via undersea cable to Darwin and overland telegraph to Adelaide.

Q	Why have Telstra chartered the ship Ile de Sein?
A	To lay undersea cable to Hawaii for broadband internet access.

Q	In 1872 the famous Overland Telegraph was completed and 15 new settlements were established between Port Augusta and Darwin. Why were the settlements necessary?
A	Messages had to be relayed by morse due to weak signal and early technology.

Q	An 1879 British Plan for a Pacific Cable link begun in 1901 was called the ALL RED ROUTE ….why?
A	It proposed to link ONLY British Empire nations, which were red on the map.

The History of Telegraphy:

	1809 to 1838 Germans Sommering and Schilling and American Samuel Morse developed the telegraph.
	First OFFICIAL Morse code message sent from Washington to Baltimore 1844 was *"What hath God wrought"* 1844 (Morse’s first experimental message was ‘A patient waiter is no loser in 1838!)
	Atlantic cables were laid from 1855 … one that worked was completed in 1866
	The first telegraph line in Australia was built in 1854 between Melbourne and Williamstown (Victoria).
	The first undersea cable was laid in 1859 across the Bass Strait linking Tasmania with the Mainland
	From 1870 to 1872, an overland telegraph was built between Port Augusta (South Australia) and Darwin (Northern Territory) and connected to an undersea cable from Indonesia. (NB Burke and Wills 1860 and McDouall Stuart 1860 ‘61 ‘62 had only crossed South to North 10 years earlier!
	La Perouse was linked by cable to Wakapauka in New Zealand opened 1876.
	1889 a cable was laid from Java to Broome.
	1893 a French Company laid a cable from New Caledonia to Bundaberg in Queensland.
	The Pacific was crossed by cable 1902.

and a poem to finish - SEA FEAR by Charles Souter


I can’t go down to the sea again For I am old and ailing; My ears are deaf to the mermaid’s call, And my stiff limbs are failing. The white sails and the tall masts Are no longer to be seen On the dainty clipper ships that sailed For Hull, and Aberdeen!

I can’t go down to the sea again: My eyes are weak and bleared, And they search again for the gallant poop Where once I stood and steered. There’s nought but wire and boiler-plate To meet my wand’ring gaze. Never a sign of the graceful spars Of the good old sailing days!

So I will sit in the little room That all old sailors know, And smoke, and sing, and yarn about The ships of long ago, ‘The Flying Cloud’, ‘The Cutty Sark’, ‘The Hotspur’ and ‘The Dart’ ... But I won’t go down to the sea again, For fear it breaks my heart!

Jim’s Australiana Spot – 2UE - August 24, 2008

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