Documents reveal the content of the first telegraph message between India and England

Portcurno (England): Newly discovered documents express the first telegraph message and joy when England first annexed India on June 23, 1870, reducing the time from month to minute by the thousands of kilometers of cable laid under the sea. .

The Sylvan Portcarno Valley in Cornwall, on the Atlantic coast, 506 kilometers southwest of London, was the epicenter of a revolution that enabled Britain and its former colonies to communicate with each other.

Museum officials told a visiting PTI correspondent that Porthcurno was an international cable communication center from 1870 to 1970 and a training college for the communications industry until 1993.

Now a museum housing rare equipment and details of the history of the telegraph, Porthcurno has been granted millions of pounds to develop an international education program to include community groups in India.

Its rare archives discovered last week include a collection of the first telegraph messages sent from Portcorno and Mumbai (then Bombay).

Until that landmark day, communication between England and India was incredible and often took months.

According to documents, the first message was sent on the night of June 23, 1870, and within 5 minutes a reply was received, which was a technical feat at the time.

The message was described as a “commendable telegram” between the managing director in London and the manager in Bombay.

The first message was ‘Stars from Anderson: How are you all?’, To which the reply was: ‘All is well’.

Anderson’s second message was: ‘Please tell the Press gentlemen to send a message to the Press gentlemen in Bombay, New York’.

After several messages that night, including some from the Governor of Bombay, Lady Mayo to Viceroy Lord Mayo based in Shimla and one from Prince of Wales to Viceroy, a response was received from journalists based in Bombay.

It reads: ‘Press from India to Press of America: The Press of India salutes the American press. Quick reply ‘.

The document states that the Viceroy of India sent a telegraph to the President of the United States and “received a reply which reached him within 7 hours and 40 minutes”.

The same evening, the Viceroy’s message to the US Congress was read: “For the first time, the Viceroy of India is speaking directly to the President of the United States via telegraph. May the end of the long line of uninterrupted communication.

Telegraphic communication with India was first established in 1864 by overland telegraph line from Europe to the top of the Persian Gulf and then by cable to the bottom of the sea to Karachi, but the overland division was never satisfactory, prompting efforts to lay more reliable wires under the sea.

In 1869, the telegraph pioneer John Pender founded the British Indian Submarine Telegraph Company, whose job was to lay wires under the sea in India.

The five ships that were used for thousands of km of cable were the Great Eastern, William Corey, Chiltern, Hawk and Hibernia.

It took six weeks to lay the wires from Suez to Bombay. The final connection from Malta to Portcorn was then established.

It was the first long-distance cable ‘chain’, and the museum’s record shows that it was happily opened to the public.

After its connection with India, Porthcurno was connected to other parts of the world by sea floor cable.

At its height, it was the largest station in the world with 14 wires working. Portcorno’s telegraphic code name was ‘PK’.

During World War II, tunnels were dug by Cornish miners for an underground building and a complete telegraph operation in Portcorn.

The building today houses the museum and archives that started the communication revolution in the late nineteenth century.

In addition to the 44 1.44 million in funding received in January, the museum received এই 35,000 this week from the international telecommunications company Suboptic to build an education project with community groups in India among other countries.

Museum officials say the money will fund an international educational program that will benefit users from the spring of 2013.

It will include online learning resources including video clips, animations and games that will enable users to discover the science of cable-based telecommunications worldwide, as well as its implications for local identity, democracy and culture.