The Bristol Royal Mail: Post, Telegraph, and TelephoneTombs, Robert Charles
History
The Bristol Royal Mail: Post, Telegraph, and Telephone
Tombs, Robert Charles
Postal service -- England -- Bristol
Mr. James Robertson, the senior assistant superintendent o£ 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account