The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-12-20 00:00:00

DEATH OF THE DUCHESS OF
SOMER.ET.

The su leen dt ath 0 cur el on Suniay of the
Duchess of Somerset, at Somerset HouFe, Park-lane,
London. The duchess, who had been suffering from
illness for some time p-st, had only ;.rrived in town
on Friday, accompanied by the duke. fi om Bulstrode-
park, Bucks. Jane Georgiana, Duchess of Somerset,
was the youngest daughter of the late Mr. Thomas
Sheridan, and grand-daughter of the Right Hon.
Richard Brinsley sheridan, and sister of the late
Lady Gifford, mother of the Earl of Dufferin. She
married June 10, 1830, the present Duke of Somer-
set, then Lord Seymour, by whom the lamented
duchess leaves surviving issue three daughters, Lady
Hermoine, married to Sir Frederick Graham, Bart.;
Lady Ulrica, married to Lord Henry Thyne, M.P. ;
- Lady Gwendolin, married to Sir John W.
Ramsden, Bart., M.P. ; her two sons, Earl St. Maur
and Lord Edward St. Maur, having pre-deceased
their mother, Earl St. Maur dyingin December, 1869,
and his brother, Lord Edward, being accidentally
killed in tiger hunting in India in December, 1865.
The late duchess, then Lady Seymour, was the
"Queen of Beauty" at the memorable tournament
given by the late Earl of Eglinton at Eglinton Castle,
Ayrshire, in Augurt, 1'39.

i and.

TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION AT
SEA.
The proposed experiment with a telegraph cable
between a lightship and the shore is now being
carried out, telegraphic communication having been
established, between the Sunk Light Vessel aed
Walton-on-the-Naze, a distance of about nine miles.
Not only are the Morse and Wheatstone instruments
working efficiently between these two points, but the
telephone, which it was feared the noise at the light-
ship would have interfered with, is a complete
success. Either by day or night the lifeboats can
now be called from Walton, Harwich, or Rams-
gate to any casualties which may occur in the neigh-
bourhood of the Sunk light, which lies in the centre
of a large group of dangerous and well-known sands,
the Gunfleet, the Sunk, and the Longsand, and the
Kentish Knock, named in their order from the coast,
forming one set to the south, while the Whiting, the
Bawdsey, the Shipwash, and the Inner and Outward
Gabbards form in like manner another to the north.
The interval between the two sets is, moreover,
bounded on the outside by the Galloper and on the
inthle by the Cork Sands. As all these dangers are at
times the scenes of disasters, and as the crew of the
Sunk can see rockets fired as wreck signals from other
outlying lightships, it is hoped that a great saving of
life and property at sea will be effected by the system
now established, although for a time it will be well to
view it only in the light of an experiment. The work
has been carried out by the Telegraph Construction
and Maintenance Company (Limited), under the im-
mediate supervision and with the assistance of the
Elder Brethren of the Trinity House and their
engineer-in-chief. The mode of taking the telegraph
cable into the lightship, so as to avoid as much as
possible all risk of its fouling the vessel's moorings is
an alteration in detail of the plan originally proposed
and illustrated by the model shown at the Fisheries
Exhibition, and has involved the substitution of a
length of steel wire cable, of which the telegraph
cable forms the core, for the double-linked chain cable
within which it was intended that the telegraph cable
should lie. All the details of the (nterprise have been
carried out in a satisfactory manner.