A D V E N T U R E S   in   C Y B E R S O U N D

Note : This file now replaced by the Telstra 'Learn It' series file...Linking a Nation: The Story of Long Distance Communications - The technical requirements of long distance transmission across Australia and the development of trunk systems and their dependent networks. http://www.telstra.com.au/classroom/sec_4_1.htm

Before modern telecommunications linked Australia with the rest of the world, Australians suffered from a profound sense of isolation. The only means of communication with the outside world was by ship. In the second half of the 19th century, the telegraph and then the telephone were brought to Australia.

These technological innovations were quickly adopted by enterprising colonial Australians. The telegraph and telephone helped overcome isolation across this vast country, and eventually linked Australia with the rest of the world. The growth of telecommunications during the latter half of the 19th century was an important part of Australia's economic and social development.

The First Telegraph Line in Australia

The telegraph was the first form of telecommunications to be used in Australia. The first telegraph line in Australia was built in 1854 only 9 years after an American, Samuel Morse, had invented his telegraph system and the code that was named after him.

In early 1853, Samuel McGowan, a young Irish-Canadian, arrived in Melbourne bringing with him several Morse telegraphy sets from the United States. He intended to form a private telegraph company to construct and operate telegraph lines between Melbourne and the Victorian gold diggings.

In September 1853, the Victorian government called for tenders for the construction of an experimental telegraph line between Melbourne and Williamstown. McGowan won the contract and this line opened for business in March 1854. The staff were kept busy with more than 4 000 telegrams being sent in the first year of operation.

One of the most important uses of the telegraph was to give early notice of the arrival of ships. Shipping remained the only means of communication between the Australian colonies and other countries for many years.

"It is a source of great gratification to us and we are sure it will be to our readers that we are able to announce that this useful invention will be opened for the use of the press and the public on Monday next...The opening of the line, or construction of new ones to the Heads, Geelong, Adelaide and Sydney, will be most important to all persons, but especially those engaged in commerce; and of the whole of them none will be ordinarily so important to Melbourne as the continuation of the line to Geelong and the Heads. Whenever that is done, we shall be able to issue a bulletin every hour in the day announcing the vessels which are seen coming to or going from the Heads, with any other information which may be important"

The Argus, Melbourne, 11 March 1854

Working as a telephone operator quickly became accepted as respectable career for young women, and provided an alternative to domestic service or factory work. However, the female telephone operators had to cope with attitudes and working conditions that might seem strange...

"A glimpse at the telephone girls employed on the switchboard in the GPO tells the observer that they have come to stay, and that the rubbish talked by fearsome male fogies to the effect that the work would prove disastrous to the ordinary female's nerves and altogether that they were entirely unsuitable for such work, was mostly lies built on prejudice. The life of the switchboard girls, under the regime of their intelligent and genial superintendent...seems to be quite a model one. The girls are afforded ample time for resting, for the purpose of which they are provided with a nice breezy room, fitted up with the comforts of a home sitting room.

"Every reasonable leniency is granted them, but in the performance of their respective duties, they are kept strictly up to mark. Their rules are laid out for them in the most understandable manner, so there cannot possibly be any backsliding.

"At present the wages are low, and considering the good work the operators are doing, and the better work they will do in the future, it would be cruelly unfair to leave that evil unremedied. Besides, the operators are young women, and have rather got beyond the age of being, satisfied with earning, "mere pin money."

"It is gratifying to a woman to know that of the bogeys raised on the introduction of women to the exchange, and the terrible calamities their introduction would be responsible for, none as yet have come to pass. One cannot praise those concerned too highly for their kindly consideration for the comfort of the female operators, or the lady superintendent for the admirable mode of working-life she has established at the exchange, and the excellent command she maintains over the girls."

Brisbane Courier, 9 December 1899

The telephone became increasingly useful as a means of communication in Australia's cities. The network gradually extended across the country like a web. It made direct inter-personal communications possible over long distances, and therefore it was faster to make business and personal arrangements by telephone than by telegraph.

In 1901, when the six Australian colonies federated to become the Commonwealth of Australia, power over telecommunications was given to the Commonwealth government by the Constitution. The telecommunications network had become an integral part of the economic and social life of the new nation.

The linking of Australia's major cities by telephone helped increase the growth of commerce and trade. However, it was many years before all states in Australia were connected by telephone. The high cost and small number of telephones restricted its usage compared to the ubiquitous telegraph service.

The Opening of the Sydney - Melbourne Telephone Line in 1907

"The successful opening of telephonic communication between Sydney and Melbourne yesterday affords another remarkable example of how the world is moving. There are many men in both cities who recollect the time when the transmission of a message from one capital to the other was a matter of days, or perhaps weeks. It is now reduced to seconds. People can converse directly with the words as they fall from their lips picked up and instantly transmitted the whole six hundred miles on the wings of harnessed lightning.

"The long-distance telephone must in due course pass into the list of necessary modern conveniences, just as the short distance one, and other things whose cost at first seemed prohibitive, have done"

Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 11 July 1907

Like most new inventions, telephones were initially very expensive and only wealthy people could afford to have them in their homes. In addition to having to pay for the construction of the line from the exchange, the customer paid a rental of 16 pounds a year, a great deal of money in those days. The purposes for which the telephone was used reflected the social relations and attitudes of colonial society. Many different uses were found for the telephone...

"Of its utility there can be no two opinions. An invention which will enable a man sitting in his own office to ask his banker for an overdraft, order a coat from his tailor, request an opinion from his lawyer, state his case to his doctor, and send his wife any reasonable excuse for his non-appearance at home at the usual hour, deserves a first-class certificate in the direction of usefulness...

"Nothing settles a matter of business so quickly and satisfactorily as a clear mutual explanation; and when one cannot carry that out in actual presence, the next best way is to let your "words fly," with the additional advantage of not running so much risk of losing one's temper as if the "other party" were actually in the one room"

The Australian Sketcher, Melbourne, 29 January 1881

One of the results of the introduction of the telephone was a new sight on the city landscape, the profusion of overhead telephone lines. As more and more telephones were connected, the wiring of the lines became more complex, and the overburdened telephone poles became an eyesore. The multiple cross-arms on the poles gave them their nickname of 'telephone trees' Although it was difficult and expensive, most telephone lines in the cities were eventually placed in a network of underground tunnels, which are still in use today.

The Overland Telegraph Line

The construction of the Overland Telegraph Line was one of the greatest civil engineering feats in the history of Australia. It connected the Australian colonies with Britain and the rest of the world by telegraph lines.

Charles Todd, the South Australian Superintendent of Telegraphs, had arrived in Australia in 1855 with ambitious plans to connect Adelaide with Melbourne and Sydney, followed by a link with England. The link depended on subsidies by the British and colonial governments and involved complex negotiations. Influenced by Todd, the South Australian government decided to build a line from Port Augusta to Darwin independently of the other colonies, and work began in September 1870.

The harsh conditions of the arid centre and the tropical north, and the difficulties that the construction teams encountered, made the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line an epic achievement. The Overland Telegraph Line was finally completed in August 1872. It linked up with a submarine telegraph cable which had been laid between Darwin and Java, which then connected with the extensive British telegraph network, so providing Australia with its first telecommunications link with the rest of the world.

Wires across the Nullabor - The East-West Link

The building of the Overland Telegraph Line had an unintended consequence. Western Australia went from being the first colony to receive the news from Europe to the last. The Western Australian and South Australian governments eventually agreed to build a telegraph line between the two colonies, and construction began in 1875.

This line was nearly as difficult to build as the Overland Telegraph Line, with the construction teams having to cope with searing heat, shifting sands, and lack of water. The line was completed in December 1877, when the Western Australian section of the line was joined with the South Australian section at Eucla. Western Australia was now linked by telegraph, via Adelaide and the Overland Telegraph Line, with the other Australian colonies and the rest of the world.

The Telephone comes to Australia

The first experiments with telephones in Australia were made in 1877, not long after its invention by Alexander Graham Bell in America in 1876. The earliest telephones were used for communication between two fixed points, for example, between a business's warehouse and its factory.

Soon, however, each telephone line was connected to a central office called an 'exchange'. At the telephone exchange, an operator could connect them to every other person with a telephone (called a 'subscriber') who was connected to that exchange. This development greatly increased the telephone's usefulness.

The first telephone exchange in Australia opened in Melbourne in August 1880, with 44 subscribers. More exchanges soon opened in the other capital cities, and the telephone quickly became accepted as a necessity for business and the wealthy.

One of the greatest attractions of the telephone, compared to the telegraph, was its simplicity. It required no special training or codes to use-not even the ability to read and write. The telephone was a novelty, and most people were curious about it...

"Mr. F. R. Wells, the local agent for the invention, fitted up one of the Edison-Bell telephones, yesterday, at the Sydney [Stock] Exchange, and a fellow one at Mr. Cracknell's room at the General Post Office, the two instruments being connected by the usual wire.

"During the day almost everyone who entered the Exchange touched the communicator and started a conversation, so that Mr. Cracknell, Mr. Maguire, and Mr. Wells, who relieved each other at the other end, were kept employed pretty busily in answering queries, many of which were of a rather silly character. The telephone worked admirably; the tone is clear, the means of communication simple, and the whole apparatus little liable to get out of order.

"We are informed that an effort is to be made to establish here a Telephone Exchange-that is, an institution between which and the houses or warehouses of subscribers telephonic communication will be established. Then, if a subscriber at the North Shore wishes to speak to another at the Glebe, he will be able to do so by signalling to the clerk at the Exchange office, and getting him to connect the wires running to the North Shore and the Glebe residences respectively, and the conversation will go on without fear of anyone hearing it en route.

"This offers a great convenience to business men and the project is likely to be taken up"

Sydney Morning Herald, 7 August 1880

Morse's telegraph system worked by having an operator tap out code on an electric switch called a "key," which sent pulses of electricity from a battery along the telegraph wire. The pulses were either short or long, representing the dots and dashes of Morse code. At the receiving end, the electricity operated a pen which marked a strip of paper (known as "ticker-tape") whenever a pulse of electricity was received. Later, skilled operators found they could spell out the message just listening to the sound that the pen made, and eventually the marking pen was replaced by a buzzer.

In Morse code, each letter of the alphabet is represented by dots and dashes. Dashes are three times as long as dots. The more common the letter of the alphabet the shorter the code for it. Using this code, a skilled telegraph operator could transmit messages at forty words a minute.

What is 'The Bush Telegraph?'

The "bush telegraph" is slang for the spread of news by word-of-mouth. The name was originally given to people who alerted bushrangers to the movements of the police, but the "bush telegraph" has come to mean any news that is passed on in casual conversation.

The Telegraph connects the Colonies

The telegraph was welcomed by colonial Australians. The other colonial governments soon followed Victoria by setting up telegraph networks of their own, connecting the capital cities with country towns and rural areas. Information was flashed around the country - commercial messages, shipping movements, weather reports, time signals, race results, government orders, political news, and announcements of births, deaths and weddings.

Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney were linked by telegraph in 1858. A telegraph line between Hobart and Launceston was completed in 1857, and a submarine (underwater) telegraph cable was laid between Victoria and Tasmania in 1859. Brisbane was connected with Sydney in 1861, and Queensland rapidly pushed its lines northward. Western Australia was slower to adopt the telegraph, with its first telegraph line, between Perth and Fremantle, being built in 1869.

Telegraphic Communication between New South Wales and Victoria

"The extension of the Electric Telegraph between this colony and those of Victoria and South Australia, has now become a great fact...

"At nine o'clock yesterday morning the Sydney Telegraph Station obtained 'circuit to (communication with) Melbourne, and succeeded in getting a message from that city in reference to the working of the line...

"At 11 o'clock on the same morning the Melbourne shipping intelligence, up to a few minutes previous, was posted in the Sydney Exchange...

"A number of messages were transmitted during the day. The first was sent by Captain Hovell, who with Mr. Hume, explored the country between Sydney and Melbourne many years ago"

Sydney Morning Herald, 30 October 1858

In Australia's early years, it could take many months to receive a reply to a letter sent by sailing ship to Britain and Ireland, where most of the colonists had left their family and friends. In addition to the social and emotional isolation, this time-lag gravely disadvantaged Australia's trade because information about markets and prices was always out-of-date.

The introduction of steam-ships and the opening of the Suez Canal shortened the travelling time, but news and mail could still only travel as fast as it could be carried by ship.

The Crimean War (1854-1856) was fought between Russia and the combined forces of Britain, France and Turkey, who were trying to limit Russian naval power in the Black Sea and avert a Russian partition of Turkey. At this time, Australia was anxious about the threat of Russia's naval might, and so news of the Crimean War was eagerly awaited in this country...

"Not even the elections can prevent the feelings of impatience and mortification at the long absence of news from escaping from every man's lips. A hundred and eleven days! Not that we are unable to account for the disappointment. The prevailing winds in the British Channel during the season of winter often arrest the outward bound fleet of merchantmen for weeks together...

England is 110 days from us-an active [steamship] company would make it 50. We are all tired of conjecturing about the Crimea;...Whether we shall have peace or not; it is of great importance that we should have some knowledge of what is going on...

It would be a great satisfaction to know that all was going on well; but since our last communication, it is possible that the affairs of Europe may have assumed a new and portentious character. Against this possibility we have not even the protection of a mail-more important perhaps to our commerce than a squadron..."

Sydney Morning Herald, 29 march 1856

The telephone works by using the scientific principle that acoustic energy (sound) vibrations can be converted into electrical energy.

In the handpiece of your telephone are a receiver and a transmitter. The receiver is the part that you hear through, and the transmitter is the part that you speak into. It's the transmitter that turns the sound vibrations into changes in the amount of electricity going down the telephone line. The sound of your voice speaking into the transmitter hits a small metal plate, called the diaphragm, in the mouthpiece, making the diaphragm vibrate at the same frequency as the sound of your voice.

Underneath the diaphragm are fine particles of carbon. The amount of electricity that can pass through this carbon depends on how squashed up the particles are. The more they are squashed, the more electricity can get through. As the diaphragm vibrates many times every second, the carbon is squashed or released, and the electrical current passing through the carbon gets weaker or stronger. This varying amount of electricity passes along the wire, through the telephone exchange, to the receiver in the telephone of the person you are speaking to.

In the receiver is a small electromagnet. An electromagnet works just like an ordinary magnet, but only when electricity is passing through it. In front of the electromagnet is another diaphragm. When the electrical current from the wire is strong, the magnet pulls the diaphragm towards it. When the current gets weaker, a spring pushes the diaphragm back. So the diaphragm in the earpiece ends up vibrating just like the diaphragm in the mouthpiece at your end of the telephone line. The vibrations of the diaphragm create sound that is a nearly exact copy of the sound that entered the mouthpiece.

Source : http://www.telstra.com.au/prod-ser/edudocs/educdocs/connect.html - no longer active

Edited by Dr Russell Naughton, January 2000

Note : This file now replaced by the Telstra 'Learn It' series file...Linking a Nation: The Story of Long Distance Communications - The technical requirements of long distance transmission across Australia and the development of trunk systems and their dependent networks. http://www.telstra.com.au/classroom/sec_4_1.htm

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