History of Telegraphy in Australia - Social Impact

Social Impact

The social impact of the arrival of the telegraph was great. There was fervour for telegraphic information transfer. By far the largest customers were the Government, business and the press. Before the telegraph news and mail could take three months to reach England, the telegraph reduced this to around seven hours. As the telegraph spread provincial and city newspapers published sections by-lined 'by Electric Telegraph'. Until the 1870s overseas news was telegraphed from Adelaide being the first port of call with telegraphic connection to the eastern states. This gave Adelaide a strategic and financial boost. Charles Todd commented that ' '

we had only one intercolonial wire and on the arrival of every English mail, there was an exciting amount of rivalry between the different newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne, great efforts being made to secure first possession of the line

For the business community the telegraph signalled prosperity and wealth. City and country telegraph offices became the centre of trade where orders were placed, banking transacted, market information exchanged. One important duty of the telegraph system was to keep the time of the nation. Time signals were transmitted to all telegraph stations in each colony at one o'clock each day and weather observations were likewise transmitted back to the state capitals. Science also benefited, one particular case was the use of the telegraph to determine longitude when in 1868 Todd with the help of the Government astronomers in NSW and Victoria linked up the Observatories with a temporary direct telegraph link. The transit of 15 select stars were observed and recorded on the Melbourne Chronograph via the telegraph from Sydney. With further observations and recordings made near Wentworth Todd was able to establish the position of the 141st degree of east longitude to give a boundary line of the border between South Australia and Victoria. Towards the close of the century Australia had become one of the largest users of the telegraph.