| Atlantic Telegraph Company |
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The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a Company formed in 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial Telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean , the first such Telecommunications link. The project stemmed from an agreement between Cyrus Field , John Watkins Brett and Charles Tilston Bright and was Incorporated in December 1856 with £ 350,000 Capital , raised principally in London , Liverpool , Manchester and Glasgow . The Board Of Directors was composed of eighteen members from the UK , nine from the U.S. and three from Canada . The original three projectors were joined by E.O.W. Whitehouse as chief Electrician . Curtis M. Lampson served ably as vice-chairman for over a decade. The board recruited Mathematician William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), who had publicly disputed some of Whitehouse's claims. The two enjoyed a tense relationship before Whitehouse was dismissed when the first cable failed. When a second cable, under Thomson's supervision, was proposed, a new subsidiary company, the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, was formed to execute the new venture. On the failure of the expedition to lay the second cable, a third company was formed to raise the capital for a further attempt, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. The next expedition was a success, also succeeding in recovering the lost second cable. The service generated revenues of £1000 in its first day of operation. BIBLIOGRAPHY |
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