History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

1870 British - Indian Cable
(Bombay - Aden - Suez)

A TELEGRAPHIC EVENING PARTY.

An entertainment of great scientific and social interest, and of entire novelty in its way, was given on the night of Thursday week, by Mr. Pender, chairman of the British Indian Submarine Telegraph Company, and by Mrs. Pender, at their private house in Arlington-street. It was an evening party of invited guests to celebrate the successful laying of the last section, from Gibraltar to Cornwall, of the submarine telegraph cable furnishing direct and independent communication between England and Bombay, through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Bay of Biscay.

Amongst the company were their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Teck; and several eminent men of science, Sir William Cook being one of them, with Sir James Anderson and Captain Halpin, of the Great Eastern, as well as M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, and other persons of distinction, were also present. In addition to the usual preparations for a festive reception of honoured visitors, Mr. Pender had fitted up one corner of the saloon as a telegraph office, and had placed it, by wires, in electric communication with distant parts of the world. Sir James Anderson officiated at the instruments, by which, during the evening, instead of the ordinary amusement of ladies at the piano, friendly messages were sent to and fro between different personages several thousand miles apart.

The Viceroy of India, being then at Simla, where the time of day was seven hours’ earlier than in London, spoke to the President of the United States at Washington, a distance of 8443 miles, or more than one third the greatest circumference of the globe, in forty minutes. As Puck says in Shakspeare’s fancy,

I’ll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes!

To this message, which expressed a hope of “lasting union between the Eastern and Western hemispheres”—not only physical, but moral union—General Grant replied, with a characteristic American idiom, congratulating India upon its successful connection with “the balance of the world,” or, as we should say, the remainder of mankind.

The Prince of Wales sent a despatch to the Khedive of Egypt, at Alexandria, and one to the King of Portugal, congratulating both on their new line of telegraphic communication with Great Britain, and each of those Sovereigns quickly replied. His Royal Highness also corresponded across the Atlantic with President Grant, who probably received the message three hours earlier than it was sent, there being fully that difference in the London and Washington times.

Lord Mayo, in his bed-room at Simla, was likewise aroused at the good early hour of five o’clock in the morning (which is quite agreeable, indeed, to Anglo-Indian habits) with an affectionate greeting from his wife, the Countess of Mayo, who was one of Mr. Pender’s guests that night. Her message was only nine minutes on its way from Piccadilly to the Himalayas ; and she was enabled to say that not only political interests but domestic interests were served by the aid of science in this wonderful performance. To this Lord Mayo replied, at 5.10 a.m.:—“Thankful for your message. I send you affectionate greeting from your two boys and all here.”

The Governor-General of India also received a message from the Prince of Wales congratulating him on the achievement of the submarine telegraph, which is sure to prove of immense advantage to the welfare of the whole empire. This was answered in appropriate terms by the Viceroy. A message sent by Sir Bartle Frere to Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, at Bombay, was acknowledged in five minutes, with the promise of an answer to follow as soon as Sir Seymour, who was in bed, could be called up. Messages also passed between the Viceroy of Egypt and M. de Lesseps, Mr. Fender and Mr. Cyrus Field, and various other persons.

We must not omit to notice that Sir William Thomson’s siphon-recording instrument was this night exhibited for the first time in England. This remarkable instrument writes down in ordinary ink every fluctuation of the electric current received at the end of a submarine cable, and is likely to displace the mirror galvanometer, by which hitherto all messages through long cables have been received.

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