Victorian Telegraphy Before Nationalization

This study offers an analysis of the technological and entrepreneurial features of the Victorian telegraph service, together with the companies which ran it until nationalization in 1869. It shows a historical reconstruction mainly based on original and unedited documents belonging to a variety of archives.

Autorentext

Simone Fari is Assistant Professor of Economic History at the University of Granada, Spain. He has been Post-Doctoral Assistant at University of Lugano, Switzerland, and 'Earth Connected' Research Fellow at the London Science Museum, UK. He first studied telecommunications history at the University of Bari, Italy, and also studied financial history during a Post-Doctoral fellowship at the University of Torino, Italy. He has published A Penisola in Comunicazione (2008), as well as many articles in international reviews.

Inhalt
Contents

1. The Origins Of The Telegraph Service
   1.1. The Heroic Years
   1.2. Experiments Along The Railroads
   1.2.1. The London & Birmingham Railroad Company
   1.2.2. The Great Western Railway Company
   1.2.3. The Electric Telegraph Company
   1.3. The Dynamics Of The Electric
   1.3.1. Ties With The Past
   1.3.2. The Venture
2. Constitutive Choices
   2.1. 'Ne Tentes Aut Perfice'
   2.2. The Optic V. The Electric Telegraph
   2.3. The Pneumatic V. The Electric Telegraph
   2.4. Gas Tubes And Electric Cables
   2.5. The Penny Post
   2.6. Railway And Telegraph
3. From Monopoly To Competition
   3.1. The Electric Against All
   3.2. The British: Litigation And Marketing
   3.3. The Magnetic: Low Profile But High Technology
   3.4. The Submarine And The European: Competition At Sea
   3.5. The First Mover Supreme
   3.6. The Effects Of The Constitutive Choices
4. The Duopoly
   4.1. The Turning Point
   4.2. The Electric's New Majority
   4.3. The British/Magnetic Merger
   4.4. The Consolidation Of The Duopoly
5. The Triumph Of The Oligopoly
   5.1. Challenging The Duopoly
   5.2. The Consolidation Of The Oligopoly
   5.3. Submarine Telegraphy
6. Nationalization
   6.1. Plans And Inquiries
   6.2. Against Nationalization
   6.3. The 1868 Telegraph Act
   6.4. The 1869 Telegraph Act
   6.5. The Reasons For Nationalization
   6.6. A New Turning Point