Abstract

The Telegraph revisited. Influence, community, and endurance in Australia

The telegraph was the most glamorous technology of the nineteenth century. When I began my work on Clear Across Australia (1984) in 1981, apart from Geoffrey Blainey's pioneering and diverse book The Tyranny of Distance which made sweeping reference to telegraphy, little historical attention had been paid to what was, contemporaneously, called 'the most perfect invention' .This paper revisits the extraordinary social and human influence of a communication technology that, reaching new audiences, transformed national, business, media, scientific, military and human life until its replacement by TRESS in 1963. Its endurance is captured by the survival of the 'Morsecodians', old men now who never forget.

Ann Moyal
Independent Scholar
Canberra