TELEGRAPHS, TELEPHONES, EXPRESS DELIVERY.
The Saxon King, Edmund I., doubtless never conceived, when he held court
(A.D. 940-946) at his palace in the village of Pucklechurch, seven miles
from Bristol, that in generations to come there would exist, as there
does now, a telegraph office within a few yards of the site of his
castle, whence a question could be wired to the ends of the earth, and a
reply obtained in the short space of a few hours. Probably at that
remote period a journey from Pucklechurch to the north of Scotland would
have been considered as great an achievement as that in recent days of
Dr. Nansen in his endeavour to get to the North Pole.
The first actual working telegraph was erected in 1838 between
Paddington and West Drayton on the Great Western Railway, and in the
following year Wheatstone and Cook constructed a telegraph line from
Paddington to Slough. Mr. Brunel then wished to extend the line to this
city, but the shareholders would not support him to that extent. In
1852, however, the Great Western Railway Board had the line constructed
through to Bristol. By means of it messages could, at that later date,
be forwarded to and from most parts of the kingdom from the office at
the Bristol Railway Station. Arrangements were put in progress for
extending the wires into the centre of the city, in order that greater
facilities might be afforded to those parties who might wish to avail
themselves of the means of inter-communication, and before the end of
the year the wires were laid from the railway station to the Commercial
Rooms, and subsequently three telegraph offices were opened in the city,
viz.: the Electric and International, on the Exchange; the Magnetic, in
Exchange Avenue; and the United Kingdom, in Corn Street. A telegraph
line was laid to Shirehampton, and the committee of the Commercial Rooms
subscribed L30 a year towards its maintenance.
It is recorded that in 1859 the firm of Messrs. W. D. and H. O. Wills,
tobacconists and snuff manufacturers of this city, laid down an
electric telegraph wire between their warehouse in Maryport Street and
their manufactory in Redcliff Street, whereby the partners and employes,
although engaged in different parts of the city, were enabled to
converse with each other as readily as if occupying the same
counting-house. The wire was used solely for their own business.
In 1862 a turnpike road telegraph was spoken of as being in course of
construction between Bristol and Birmingham.
Mr. James Robertson, the senior assistant superintendent oL the Bristol
Telegraph Office, during his forty-two years' service, thirteen of which
were passed in the employment of the Electric and International
Telegraph Company, has had many experiences. He has culled from his
"ancient history" the fact that the amount of telegraph business
transacted by the E. and I. T. Co. at Falmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, and
London (Lothbury, head office) on March 10th, 1858, at the respective
times of day stated, was:--Falmouth, 8 messages, handed in by 10.20
a.m.; Plymouth at 10.36 had managed to transmit 7; Bristol, at noon,
39; and Lothbury had received 116 by 12.17 p.m. Plymouth transmitted for
Falmouth, and Bristol for Plymouth. Bain's chemical recorder was the
system used on the Falmouth wire, the double needle on the Plymouth and
Bristol, and "Bains" and needles on Bristol-London circuits. The average
delay on messages at Plymouth was eighty-three minutes and at Bristol
fourteen minutes. The charge at the time from Falmouth to London was
four shillings for twenty words, addresses free. The present proprietor
of _Lloyd's Newspaper_, Mr. Thomas Catling, records an incident in which
Mr. Robertson was concerned. Mr. Catling was the only London newspaper
reporter who visited Windsor on the eventful night when the deeply
lamented Prince Consort breathed his last on 14th December, 1861. On
reaching Windsor by the last train from London he learned that His Royal
Highness had passed away about twenty minutes previously. Having
obtained at the Castle particulars of the sad event, Mr. Catling hunted
out the residence of the clerk of the Electric and International
Telegraph Company. On ringing him up, the clerk pleaded that before
going to bed he had been taking gruel and hot water to get rid of a bad
cold. He, however, got up and proceeded with Mr. Catling to the
telegraph office in High Street, whence intelligence was wired to
London. Mr. Catling preserved the receipt of that message as a souvenir
of the occasion. Mr. Robertson was the telegraph clerk who arose from
his bed to perform the service in the dead of night.
On the transfer of the telegraph business from the companies to the
State early in 1870, the Post Office, Bristol, engaged sixteen clerks
from the Electric and International Telegraph Company, five from the
United Kingdom Company, and six from the Magnetic Company. Additional
clerks were employed by the Post Office as soon as the volume of work
could be gauged, but in the meantime the transferred clerks had to do
practically double duty. The officials taken over from the companies
were located in the Small Street Post Office, but it was not until
January, 1872, that room could be found there for the entire staff,
which had then grown to be ninety clerks and fifty messengers. The
telegraphic system soon after the Government took to it was extended in
this district to twenty of the principal villages. In the first year of
Post Office working there were 450,000 messages dealt with here, and now
the yearly number is 3,500,000. The sixpenny telegram was introduced in
1885. The local telegraph service now has a staff consisting of a
superintendent, 23 superintending officers, 140 male and 44 female
telegraphists, eight telephonists, and 155 telegraph messengers.
Telegrams are delivered from the head office, two branch offices,
fifteen town sub-offices, forty rural sub-offices, and four railway
stations. The head office has 600,000 messages delivered from it
annually, the branch and town sub-offices 220,000, and the rural
districts 74,000. Of the latter (74,000), about 8,000 are delivered at
distances of from one to three miles, and 350 at distances over three
miles. After 8.0 p.m. all the messages in the town area are delivered
from the head office. The Duke of Norfolk's 1897 concession of free
delivery of telegrams for all distances under three miles has been
appreciated by all those concerned.
The telegraph gallery has direct telegraphic connection with the
undermentioned towns: Bath, Birmingham, Bridgwater, Cardiff,
Cheltenham, Chippenham, Clevedon, Cork, Exeter, Glasgow, Gloucester,
Guernsey, Jersey, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newport (Mon.),
Oxford, Plymouth, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon, Taunton, and
Weston-super-Mare, and thirty-two smaller towns.
Bristol plays a not unimportant part in the Post Office telephone trunk
line system, commenced in 1896. It has direct trunk lines to Bath,
Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Gloucester, London, Newport, Sharpness,
Taunton, and Weston-super-Mare. The conversations held by the public
through the medium of these lines number 4,000 weekly.
[Illustration: THE TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT ROOM, BRISTOL POST OFFICE.
_From a photograph by Mr. Protheroe, Wine Street, Bristol._]
The well-ventilated and well-lighted telegraph instrument room is on the
upper floor, and extends from end to end of the building. In it there
are 102 telegraph instruments of various kinds in use, viz.: 5 A.B.C.'s,
19 double-plate sounders, 30 sounders, 28 duplexes, 5 quadruplexes, 5
Wheatstone sets, 7 repeaters or relays, 2 concentrators and 1 hexode.
Divested of technicalities, it may be said that telegraphing on the
A.B.C. instruments is effected by alphabetic manipulative keys, which
are depressed by the fingers of the left hand of the sender at the
same time that a handle is turned with the right hand, and a
corresponding effect is produced on the dial plate of the receiver. The
double-plate sounder is read by sound from two small metal hands
striking right and left against two pieces of metal. In sending, the
working is by means of keys manipulated by the hand. The sending upon
the sounder instrument, which is that chiefly used, is done by a small
key with handle being depressed and released according to the dots and
dashes of the Morse alphabet. The signals by which messages are received
and read by the ear are produced by a bar of soft iron striking upon a
steel point placed between two coils of wire. With the A.B.C.,
double-plate sounder, and sounder, only one message can be sent or
received on the wire at one time; but the duplex sounder instruments are
so constructed that two messages can be sent on the wire--one in each
direction--at the same time. Double-current duplex instruments are in
use for telegraphing to busy towns such as Plymouth, Exeter, Cardiff,
Swansea, &c., &c. The quadruplex consists of two duplex sets upon one
wire. Upon these circuits two distinct messages may be sent
simultaneously from each end. The hexode has six instruments at each end
of a single wire, enabling twelve clerks to operate at the same
time--six at each end,--and thus admits of a single wire doing so much
work as six wires worked with the ordinary sounder instrument.
At times of pressure when race meetings are going on, or during the
cricket and football seasons, the ordinary methods of working are
supplemented by extraordinary means, thus: the duplex working between
Bristol and Manchester is augmented by Manchester connecting there a
Bristol wire with a Newcastle wire: Newcastle in like manner further
connecting the line with Glasgow, Glasgow with Edinburgh, Edinburgh with
Dundee, and Dundee with Aberdeen. Then at the Bristol end, instead of
working by means of the ordinary keys, Wheatstone working is resorted
to, viz.: the messages instead of being "keyed" are "punched," the
punching process being performed by means of iron punching sticks upon
an apparatus called the "perforator." The sticks are rapidly worked by
skilful operators upon three steel keys, which, when struck,
mechanically draw a strip of white paper tape, at the same time
perforating holes which indicate signs in accordance with the Morse
alphabet system. These slips thus "punched"--which, by-the-by, very much
resemble the perforated slips used in connection with the organette
instrument--are passed through a Wheatstone "transmitter," and buzzed
through so rapidly that 400 or 500 words can be sent in a minute. The
signals are simultaneously reproduced upon blue slips in the form of
dots and dashes at Manchester, at Newcastle, at Glasgow, at Edinburgh,
at Dundee, and at Aberdeen. The message recorded on the slips is broken
off at about every hundred words to form a "press" page at the receiving
offices for writing up by the telegraphists, a large number of whom can
be employed on the work at the same time. When this process is resorted
to the battery power for the wire has to be greatly increased. The
repeater instruments are worked in like manner, except that the system
is permanent instead of occasional. The concentrator is a recent
invention, and is used for the purpose of economising force and
apparatus, and of minimising delay and table space. By its means the
wires for eighteen to twenty offices, which use the same form of
telegraphic instrument, are led into a special switch-board, and each
wire as it is required is "switched" through to a telegraph instrument,
at which a clerk is ready to send or receive the message. Thus the
telegraphist is "fed" by the operator at the concentrator, and has to
send a message to any one of the thirty towns instead of, under ordinary
working, to only three or four towns.
In place of over 700 batteries with 3,500 cells of the Bichromate,
Daniel and Leclanche type in use at the Bristol telegraph office for
many years, a system of accumulators or storage batteries has been
brought into operation. The power for charging the accumulators is
generated on the spot by a Crossley's gas engine driving a dynamo. The
accumulators number 250, and each has seven divisions. The hexode
instrument between Bristol and London requires a voltage of 400 dry
cells. There are two complete sets of accumulators, each with separate
connecting wires to the instrument room. One set is in use at a time.
The system of accumulators has been introduced for the purposes of
economy and saving of space.
It may be interesting to the uninitiated to learn that in telegraphy the
earth plays the part of a return wire; thus the circuit between Bristol
and Birmingham is rendered complete by earth. The wires connected with
the two towns indicated are brought into the test boxes at the
respective places, and there connected to a single wire at each town
which finds earth by means of a zinc plate buried some twelve feet in
the soil near or under the Post Office buildings.
Occasionally when people have been out for a drive or a cycle ride, and
their eyes have been delighted with the grand scenery to be found around
Bristol, they look, as they journey homewards, to the Government poles
and to the many wires therefrom suspended, and wonder which are
telegraph wires, which are telephone wires, where they all lead to, and
between what points messages are sent and conversations held. Such
travellers returning to Bristol by way of Almondsbury would see the
wires on the one side (telegraphs), which run from Bristol to Falfield,
Newport, Cardiff, Swansea, Gloucester, Liverpool; London to Swansea,
Newport, and Cardiff; Birmingham to Exeter; Plymouth to Liverpool; and
(telephones) Bristol to Birmingham, Gloucester, Cardiff; and on the
other side of the road (telephones) Horfield, Fylton, Almondsbury,
Newport, Cardiff, Gloucester and Birmingham. In some instances there are
two or three wires for the same place. The telegraph, and telephone
wires cross and recross each other at frequent intervals along the road,
and the whole sets of wires cross from side to side of the road between
Fylton and Almondsbury.
Alternative routes for the wires are adopted where practicable, so that
in case of a break-down on one line communication may be kept up on the
other.
By way of illustration of such alternate routes, it may be mentioned
that the two wires from the Head Post Office in Small Street for Swansea
run underground to Stapleton Road, at which point they are brought above
ground and diverge, one running to Wee Lane, thence to Ashley Hill,
Horfield, Almondsbury, Alveston Ship, Falfield and Berkeley, up to the
Severn Bridge; and the other branching off at the end of Stapleton Road,
and carried along the Fishponds and Chipping Sodbury roads nearly to
Yate, and down the Tortworth road to just beyond Falfield, where it
joins the other Swansea and South Wales wires, and passes over the
Severn Bridge into Wales.
The telegraph and telephone wires in this district are chiefly erected
and maintained by soldiers of the Royal Engineers. Sixteen military
telegraphists, members of the Royal Engineers, are attached to the
Bristol Post Office, and kept in training for telegraph service with the
army. Twelve of them are now--November, 1899--in South Africa on active
service, in connection with the troubles in the Transvaal.
In the great hurricane which occurred in January, 1899, the telephone
and telegraph wires radiating from Bristol were blown down in all
directions. In consequence Bristol was entirely cut off from direct
telephonic communication with Birmingham for 21 hours, and had only one
wire instead of two for 9-1/4 hours; from Bath for 18 hours, and had
only one wire instead of two for 5-1/2 hours; from Cardiff for 18 hours,
and had only two wires instead of three for 10-1/2 hours; from
Weston-super-Mare entirely for 24-1/2 hours; from Taunton for 28-1/2
hours; from Exeter for 27 hours; from Sharpness for 26 hours. There was
only one wire instead of two to Gloucester for 26-1/4 hours, to London
for 6 hours, and to Newport for 20-3/4 hours.
The trunk telephone lines were more or less interrupted for a week,
caused by the working parties engaged on repairs.
The telegraph wires for the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, Monmouth,
Warwick, Shropshire, Worcester, Wilts, Devon, Cornwall and Lancashire
were those chiefly deranged.
It is believed that there is only one telegraph cable in the Bristol
district, and that cable does not belong to the Postmaster-General. It
crosses the river Avon at a point adjacent to Pill and Shirehampton, and
was used by the Commercial Rooms in connection with reports of the
arrival of vessels. Up to the time of its introduction, as already
stated, "warners" were employed. The last of the old running "warners"
were Gerrish and Case. These men lived at Pill, and on hearing news from
pilots-men of the arrival of a ship in the Bristol Channel they started
off on foot to Bristol and _warned_ the merchants and wives of sailors
of the vessel's arrival in the Channel, getting, of course, fees for
their trouble,--a guinea from the merchants, and so on, down to the
shillings of the sailors' wives,--and fifty years ago these fees were
willingly paid, and the heavy postages too. The runners were men of some
little mark.
The Post Office at Avonmouth, a Bristol sub-office, is much used for
telegraph purposes by persons on board vessels passing up and down the
Kingroad in the Bristol Channel. The Bristol Corporation placed outside
the port a large white notice board with "TELEGRAPH OFFICE" painted upon
it in black letters, to attract the attention of mariners. The messages
are chiefly received from vessels with cargoes consigned to Sharpness,
which in neap tides have often to lie in the roads for days.
Telegrams for vessels lying in Kingroad are often taken out by boat at
midnight or in the early hours of the morning. This is often in
consequence of the tide not serving, or being too strong for the boatman
to go out at seasonable hours.
Lundy Island, in the Bristol Channel, is connected with the mainland by
a submarine cable, which is considered to be one of the most perfect of
its kind. Letters for Lundy, from Bristol and elsewhere, are carried
across by boat from Instow once a week. The nearer small islands of
Flat Holm and Steep Holm have cable telephonic communication with
Weston-super-Mare. The telephone, which is carried into the Weston Post
Office, is rented by the War Office Authorities, who allow the islanders
the use of it. Letters from Bristol for the Flat Holm are conveyed by
way of Cardiff. The island is rented from the Cardiff Corporation by a
farmer who resides upon it. His son, who lives in Cardiff, daily visits
the island in a yacht, and conveys the letters for the Trinity House
officials and residents. For the Steep Holm, Bristol letters are sent
from Weston-super-Mare; the services to the island being
tri-weekly--Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday,--and are performed by a
contractor, who goes across on behalf of the War Office. The Steep Holm
is inhabited by military men only. In a manuscript of 30th March, 1825,
it is described as "Stipe Holme." One of the first serious efforts in
connection with the plan of telegraphing through space without
connecting wires was conducted between the diminutive island of Flat
Holm and the shore, a distance of about five miles; and between Penarth
and Brean Down, a distance of nine miles. An interesting illustration
of the system of wireless telegraphy was given, under the direction of
Mr. W. H. Preece, C.B., F.R.S. (now Sir W. H. Preece, K.C.B., F.R.S.),
at the Clifton College conversazione, held in honour of the learned
British Associates during the meeting of the Association at Bristol in
1898.
The telegraph staff have seldom had their skill and smartness more
thoroughly tested than on the memorable Monday evening in February,
1893, when press messages of great length relating to the introduction
of the Home Rule Bill were sent over the wires. Twenty minutes after Mr.
Gladstone rose to speak in the House of Commons the first instalment of
the special summary of his speech reached this city. The conclusion of
the summary was received at two minutes to 7. The verbatim report
commenced to arrive at 4.49, and the last instalment reached the Bristol
Office at 8 o'clock. The total number of words in the messages sent to
Bristol was nearly 40,000.
During the early potato season telegraphing is very brisk with Jersey.
Bristol is the only large office besides London which has direct
communication with the island. Some idea may be gathered of the extra
labour entailed on the telegraph service from the fact that in the month
of June, 1899, no fewer than 20,904 telegrams passed between Bristol and
Jersey, the normal number being only 5,800 monthly. Five or six
telegraph operators are usually sent during the season to Jersey from
Bristol.
In Bristol about 700 firms use abbreviated telegraphic addresses.
The telegraph money order system, started in 1889, is exhibiting
marvellous developments in the local service.
The express letter delivery service, which came into operation in 1891,
is very useful to the public. By means of this agency the Post Office
distributes by express messenger 300,000 letters and parcels annually.
Of that number Bristol contributes 7,000 services. Bicycles and
tricycles are now delivered for the public from any telegraph office in
Bristol and district by special messenger at a fee of 3d. per mile,
without any charge for weight. The messengers are not permitted to ride
upon the cycles, except by the permission of the senders, but will wheel
them up to a distance of three miles.
An express delivery messenger has been used, ere now, for the convoy of
a traveller from point to point in a town unknown to him or her. The
Post Office is often required to assist even more closely in the
domestic relations of life. Recently a gentleman from America wrote to
the Clifton Post Office to enquire whether a certain near relative of
his could be found, as he was very anxious to see her before return to
America. He enclosed a shilling stamp for a reply by telegraph, and
begged for urgency. The relative was found and her address given. The
applicant's ardour to see his relative cooled, or his stay in the
country was abridged, for instead of paying the proposed visit, he
begged the Post Office officials to expend five shillings, which he
sent, in the purchase of cut roses for his relative. Of course, this was
outside the round of Post Office duties, but the clerks obligingly
attended to it, with the aid of a telegraph messenger who was off duty
at the moment.
Occasional mistakes are not to be wondered at when people write
illegibly. Through the improper formation of the capital letter, D, in
the proper name Dyster, has in telegraphing been turned into O, and the
name made Oyster, with the result of misdelivery of the telegram to a
firm of fishmongers having "Oyster" as an abbreviated address. It must
have been extremely painful to an anxious parent to receive a telegram
summoning him to a nursing home far distant, in terms that his "sow was
worse," and begging him to come at once; the telegraphist having made
the slight mistake of transcribing "w" for "n." The gentleman who sent a
telegram to his town house in the West End of London asking that his
covert coat might be forwarded to him was no doubt considerably
astonished when his butler returned the telegram to him by post asking
for an explanation, and he found that the text of it was "Pigs, 9/3,
8/9, and 8/-." The error was occasioned in connection with the use of
multiple addresses for a bacon-trading firm's telegrams. In another
instance a curious complication resulted through imperfect spacing on
the part of the signalling telegraphist, thus:--A telegram written by
the sender as "To ----, Fore St., Northam, Bideford. Be in attendance
Public Offices," was transcribed thus:--"To ---- forest, Northam,
Bideford. Be in at ten dance Public Offices," and, owing to the number
of words counting the same as the number signalled, the inaccuracy was
not discovered until a repetition had been obtained from the office of
origin on application of the addressee. It was printed in a Midland
newspaper that at the presentation of a sword of honour to the Sirdar
the Common Councilmen attended in their "margarine gowns," and, of
course, the error of using "margarine" for "mazarine" was put down to
the carelessness of the telegraph clerk. A telegram was sent indicating
arrival at 8 Mostyn Crescent, in a favourite North Wales town. At one
stage in transmission "Mostyn" became converted into "mostly," and at
the next office of transmission "Crescent" became "pleasant," and the
telegram when delivered read "Arrived 8 mostly pleasant." The Prime
Minister who had informed his audience that "there was no prospect of an
immediate general election, that they had a working majority, and the
Government was of good cheer," would not have been pleased had he seen
that the last word in the telegram posted up in the Bristol Commercial
Rooms had been transcribed as "of good cheek."
A telegram, "Have arranged for Sunday. Dening," with the first two words
struck out, and "arrangement complete" substituted underneath, was
handed in at a telegraph office by a well-known and much respected
Bristol clergyman. At the forwarding office the message was
unfortunately read "For Sunday Dinning arrangement complete," the
erasure and addition not having been properly understood and the proper
name misspelt. At the delivering office the message again suffered
alteration, and became "For Sunday dining arrangements complete." It may
readily be supposed that the addressee was somewhat astonished at the
peculiar text of the message.
The following is from the Bristol _Times and Mirror_ of February, 1893,
and has reference to a little inaccuracy on the part of a telegraph
assistant employed at a Bristol sub-post office. The incident itself is
correctly reported:--"Garraways, 12 o'clock. Dear Mrs. B.--Chops and
tomato sauce. Yours Pickwick," settled the hash of a well-known
character; and a wire, "Going to Bath to meet girl. Not back to dinner,"
had, very nearly, a similar effect on the domestic relations of one of
the smartest solicitors in our city. The telegraph has had, in its time,
much to answer for, "but never aught like this." When Puck said: "I'll
put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes," he little thought
what mischief he might do. It was only the other day we read how a stray
dropped line destroyed a horse, killed a cow, and cut off the head of a
nigger; but these accidents were a trifle compared with what might have
happened if the message first quoted could not have been explained. The
learned gentleman it appears has a brother, by name Gilbert, familiarly
known in the circle as "Gil." The latter, having business in Bath, wrote
asking his relative to dine with him at the "Christopher." The learned
advocate at once accepted; but, being a thoroughly domesticated man,
telegraphed to his better-half: "Going to Bath to meet Gil; not back to
dinner." Then came in the "cussedness" of the wire which substituted
"girl" for "Gil," and hence the temporary ructions when the happy
husband, having succeeded with his latchkey, sought repose.