page_title: Electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom
section_title: Electric Telegraph Company
hierarchical_section_title: Electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom / Telegraph companies / Electric Telegraph Company
caption_attribution_description: Cooke and Wheatstone's single needle telegraph.
context_page_description: Electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom had the world's first commercial telegraph company in the nineteenth century, and British telegraphy dominated international telecommunications until well into the twentieth. Telegraphy is the sending of textual messages by human operators using symbolic codes. Electrical telegraphy sends these messages over conducting wires, often incorporating a telegram service. It is distinct from the optical telegraphy that preceded it and the radiotelegraphy that followed it. Francis Ronalds first demonstrated a working telegraph over a substantial distance in 1816, but was unable to put it into use. Starting in 1836, William Fothergill Cooke, with the scientific assistance of Charles Wheatstone, developed the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph and Cooke formed a company to exploit it. Important components were the needle telegraph instrument suggested by Wheatstone, the battery invented by John Frederic Daniell, and the relay invented by Edward Davy.
  In 1846 the Electric Telegraph Company was formed by Cooke and financier John Lewis Ricardo.
context_section_description: The Electric Telegraph Company (ETC) was formed in 1846 by Cooke and financier John Lewis Ricardo, and was the first company formed for the purpose of providing a telegraph service to the public.  It was formed without Wheatstone as he and Cooke had had a serious falling out over who should take credit for the invention.  The matter went to arbitration with Marc Isambard Brunel acting for Cooke and Daniell acting for Wheatstone.  A compromise was reached with both of them taking some credit.  Wheatstone was uninterested in commercial enterprises, wishing only to publish scientific results.  The ETC bought out Wheatstone's patent interest in exchange for royalties;  Davy's relay patent was also acquired.  The company bought out Bain for the substantial sum of £7,500 (equivalent to £770,000 in 2016) because he was threatening to derail the bill forming the company on the grounds that his patents would be infringed.  The ETC bought out other telegraph patents when they could, often not because they wanted to use them, but as a means of suppressing competition.
  The company at first concentrated on business with the railways but struggled to be profitable.  On the other hand, their relationship with the railways gave them a structural advantage over competitors that started up later.  By the time competitors came on the scene the ETC had agreements with most railways.  The railways gave exclusive use of the wayleaves to the ETC, shutting out competitors from the most economic way of building a telegraph network.
  After 1848 other areas of business started to grow in comparison to the railways.  Supply of news to newspapers and stock exchange information to the financial sector were profitable.  A major user from the beginning was the insurer Lloyd's of London, and they had telegraph instruments installed directly in their London offices in 1852.  General use by the public was slow to grow due to high prices.  The telegram business grew after competition drove down prices and this led in 1859 to the company relocating their London central office to bigger premises in Great Bell Alley, Moorgate, the eastern portion of which was later renamed Telegraph Street after the company.  The ETC remained by far the largest telegraph company until nationalisation in 1870, after which, Cooke retired from the company.  Both he and Wheatstone were knighted for their services to telegraphy in, respectively, 1869 and 1868.
  The ETC was heavily involved in laying submarine telegraph cables to Europe and Ireland.  They operated the first cable ship permanently fitted out for laying cables, CS Monarch.  In 1853 they created the International Telegraph Company to overcome Dutch objections to a British company laying telegraph cables on their soil.  This company was merged back into the ETC in 1854, the name of the new company becoming the Electric and International Telegraph Company.  Other subsidiary companies created to lay submarine cables were the Channel Islands Telegraph Company (1857) and the Isle of Man Telegraph Company (1859).
caption: Cooke and Wheatstone single-needle instrument c. 1872–1873
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