page_title: Electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom
section_title: Decline and recovery
hierarchical_section_title: Electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom / Decline and recovery
caption_attribution_description: English: GPO telegraph messenger, World War I
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 pre-war decline was briefly halted during World War I, but usage started falling again in 1920 when the minimum charge for inland telegrams doubled to one shilling (5p).  By 1935, with the country in the grip of economic depression, inland telegram messages had fallen to 35 million, less than half the pre-war figure, and just over one third of the 1900 peak.  At the same time, telephone usage rapidly increased as the number of subscribers grew.  Telephone calls grew from 716 million in 1919 to over 2.2 billion in 1939.  Even the number of telephone trunk calls alone, 112 million in 1939, exceeded the number of telegrams.  In some cases telegrams were sent or received by telephone (phonograms), making it increasingly difficult to treat the two services separately.  By 1939, 40% of telegrams were phonograms.
  Another issue that encouraged decline was the introduction in 1921 of telegram delivery by "walks" similar to the way mail was delivered.  That is, a group of telegrams were all delivered by one messenger on the same outing over a predefined route.  Previously, a messenger was sent out from the receiving office as soon as the telegram was received.  This eroded the speed advantage of the telegraph over the post, although the time between walks was still usually very short; the postal service was cheaper and could guarantee next-day delivery almost anywhere in the British Isles, which for most purposes was good enough.  Around 800 fewer messengers were required as a result of the introduction of this system.
  In 1935 Postmaster General Kingsley Wood took steps to increase the usage of the telegraph service.  The sixpence (2.5p) rate was restored, but for only nine words.  A priority service was introduced for an additional sixpence, delivered in a red envelope.  Special envelopes were also introduced for greetings telegrams, coloured gold with a red and blue border, and a dove logo.  This service was heavily publicised to overcome a widespread belief that telegrams usually meant bad news.  The message was hand written rather than printed tape, and the Post Office provided a free diary service for recurring events like birthdays and anniversaries.  In 1939, over 4 million greetings telegrams were delivered and the total number of telegrams got back up to 50 million.  Another service introduced around this time was facsimile by telegraphy (fax).  This was heavily used by newspapers to receive photographs.
caption: Female telegram messenger during World War I
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