Electric Telegraph Company
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The Electric Telegraph Company was the world's first public telegraph company, founded in the United Kingdom in 1846 by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and John Lewis Ricardo, MP for Stoke-on-Trent.
At creation the company purchased all the patents Cooke and Wheatstone had obtained to date.[1] It merged with the International Telegraph Company in 1855 to become the Electric and International Telegraph Company.[2] C.F. Varley was chief engineer in the 1860s.
The company was nationalised by the British government in 1870[2] and British Telecom, the giant multi-national communications corporation based in over 170 countries worldwide today, is a direct descendant of Cooke's Electric Telegraph Company.[3]
Historical documents
Records of the Electric Telegraph Company (33 volumes), 1846-1872, the International Telegraph Company (5 volumes), 1852-1858 and the Electric and International Telegraph Company (62 volumes), [1852]-1905 are held by BT Archives.
References
External links
- Distant Writing - The History of the Telegraph Companies in Britain between 1838 and 1868
- Distant Writing - Detailed history of the Electric Telegraph Company
- BT Archives official site
- BT Archives online catalogue