Title: Submarine communications cable
Content:   In August 1850, having earlier obtained a concession from the French government, John Watkins Brett's English Channel Submarine Telegraph Company laid the first line across the English Channel, using the converted tugboat Goliath. It was simply a copper wire coated with gutta-percha, without any other protection, and was not successful. However, the experiment served to secure renewal of the concession, and in September 1851, a protected core, or true, cable was laid by the reconstituted Submarine Telegraph Company from a government hulk, Blazer, which was towed across the Channel. In 1853, more successful cables were laid, linking Great Britain with Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and crossing The Belts in Denmark. The British & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company completed the first successful Irish link on May 23 between Portpatrick and Donaghadee using the collier 
Title: Submarine Telegraph Company
Content:  The Submarine Telegraph Company was a British company which laid and operated submarine telegraph cables. Jacob and John Watkins Brett formed the English Channel Submarine Telegraph Company to lay the first cable across the English Channel. An unarmoured cable with gutta-percha insulation was laid in 1850. The recently introduced gutta-percha was the first thermoplastic material available to cable makers and was resistant to seawater. This first cable was a failure and was soon broken by a fishing boat. The Bretts formed a new company, the Submarine Telegraph Company, and laid a new cable in 1851. This cable had multiple conductors and iron wire armouring. Telegraph communication with France was established for the first time in October of that year. This was the first undersea telegraph cable to be put in service anywhere in the world. The Company continued to lay, and operate, more cables between England and the Continent until they were nationalised in 1890. Through a series of mergers they ultimately became part of Cable and Wireless (CW). The Times memorialized the 50th anniversary of the cable in 1950, and CW and the Science Museum, London did the same on the 100th anniversary in 1950.
Title: Electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom
Content:  The world's first ocean cable was laid across the English Channel. Jacob and John Watkins Brett had been planning such a cable since 1847. In 1849, the South Eastern Railway Company conducted a trial of 2 mi of cable made by the Gutta Percha Company from the ship Princess Clementine anchored off Folkestone. The ship could send telegraph messages directly to London via a connection to the South Eastern's overhead telegraph line. After several failed attempts, the Bretts' company, the Submarine Telegraph Company (STC), succeeded in connecting to France in 1851. The company went on to lay many other cables to 
Title: Electrical telegraph
Content:  the Rhine between Deutz and Cologne. In 1849, C. V. Walker, electrician to the South Eastern Railway, submerged a 2 mi wire coated with gutta-percha off the coast from Folkestone, which was tested successfully. John Watkins Brett, an engineer from Bristol, sought and obtained permission from Louis-Philippe in 1847 to establish telegraphic communication between France and England. The first undersea cable was laid in 1850, connecting the two countries and was followed by connections to Ireland and the Low Countries. The Atlantic Telegraph Company was formed in London in 1856 to undertake to construct a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean. It was successfully completed on 18 July 1866 by the ship SS Great Eastern, 
Title: Submarine Telegraph Company
Content:  setting off an electrical fuse over the telegraph from Dover to fire a cannon in Calais. In reply, Calais fired a cannon in Dover Castle. The opening had again missed the French government deadline, but the concession was nevertheless renewed on 23 October for ten years from that date. The cable remained in service with the Submarine Telegraph Company for the lifetime of the company. This was the first undersea submarine cable put into service. Werner von Siemens had used gutta-percha-insulated cable to cross the Rhine in 1847 and Kiel Harbour in 1848, but this was the first working undersea cable to link two countries.
Title: John Pender
Content:  The first working submarine cable had been laid in 1851 between Dover and Calais. Its design formed the basis of future cables: a copper conductor, the cable's core, was insulated with gutta-percha, a type of latex from Malaya which had been found preferable to India rubber for under-water use. The cable was armoured with iron wire, thicker at the shore ends where extra protection from anchors and tidal chafing was needed. Although this basic technology was in place, there was a world of difference between a cross-Channel line of less than twenty-five miles and a cable capable of spanning the Atlantic, crossing the 1660 nmi between Valentia, on the west coast of Ireland, and 
Title: 1851 in science
Content: November 13 – First protected submarine telegraph cable laid, across the English Channel. ; William Armstrong introduces the weight-loaded hydraulic accumulator. 
Title: Sangatte
Content:  Sangatte was the landing point of the world's first operational underwater telegraph cable, laid across the Channel by the Submarine Telegraph Company in 1851 between South Foreland and Sangatte.
Title: Submarine communications cable
Content:  Hutt. The same ship was used for the link from Dover to Ostend in Belgium, by the Submarine Telegraph Company. Meanwhile, the Electric & International Telegraph Company completed two cables across the North Sea, from Orford Ness to Scheveningen, the Netherlands. These cables were laid by Monarch, a paddle steamer which later became the first vessel with permanent cable-laying equipment. In 1858, the steamship Elba was used to lay a telegraph cable from Jersey to Guernsey, on to Alderney and then to Weymouth, the cable being completed successfully in September of that year. Problems soon developed with eleven breaks occurring by 1860 due to storms, tidal and sand movements, and wear on rocks. A report to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1860 set out the problems to assist in future cable-laying operations.
Title: Submarine Telegraph Company
Content:  tow from two tugs on 25 September 1851. The cable ran out a mile (1.6 km) before reaching Sangatte. As a temporary measure, a length of unarmoured cable used for the underground link from Sangatte to Calais was spliced on to enable the ocean cable to be landed. The telegraph station on the English side was in a private house in Dover. At first, they could not contact France, but soon discovered that the problem was not with the submarine cable. Rather a joint had been omitted in the underground cable between South Foreland and Dover. Telegraph communication between Britain and France was established for the 

Question: when was the first underwater cable laid beneath the english channel?
Answer: 1850.