CAPTC.co.uk

History

Timeline

1688

1801

1870

1901

1904

1927

1949

1956

1956

1962

1982

1992

1998

2000

2001

2006

2008

Start of

Packet ships

first local

Cornish

newspaper

Telegraphy

arrives

in Cornwall

first radio

transmission

on

The Lizard

first cinema

screenings

in Redruth

first BBC radio

broadcasts

receivable

in Cornwall

first

magazine

published

in

Cornwall

first BBC TV

broadcasts

in Cornwall

first BBC FM

broadcasts

receivable in

parts of

Cornwall

first UK

satellite

Earth Station

starts on

The Lizard

first BBC

local radio

in Cornwall

first ILR

station in

Cornwall

DVB in

Cornwall

starts

DAB Radio

starts

broadcasting

in Cornwall

Broadband

in

Cornwall

starts

3G mobile

phone

starts in

Cornwall

Radio St Austell Bay

launches as

Cornwall’s first

mainland Community

Radio

Background

The telecommunications mast on Carnmenellis hill. The mound to the right is a covered reservoir according to the OS map

Porthcurno in 1870 – Britain became wired to the world. For the first time telegraphy made it possible for Britain to communicate with its colonies in the British Empire. Originally, the intention was to land telegraphy cables at Falmouth, Cornwall, but a last minute change by the Falmouth Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Company ensured that Porthcurno has gone into telecommunications history. The reason was to protect the cables from dredging damage in the busy Falmouth harbour. Although the new telecommunications industry itself did not affect the communications between the sparse and geographically spread out villages and towns within Cornwall, it started the Victorian Internet, which had a profound effect on mobilising the speed of change during the latter days of the Industrial Revolution.

Cornwall’s geography, a long, narrowing peninsula, pointing into the Atlantic, made travel by land (Cornwall is only joined to Devon by a short four mile stretch of land–the River Tamar divides the rest) slow, unreliable and poor. (Crossing the Tamar was by a few ancient stone bridges and two ferries to Plymouth). Selling and distribution of market goods used the sea and major rivers. However, improved telecommunications stimulated growth in the ports of Cornwall and the exchange of goods, particularly of mining products, like copper and tin. It also led to previously unexplored markets being discovered, for example arsenic, a by-product of tin production, was exported to the USA, where it was used in the production of pesticides in the cotton fields.

Before the arrival of mass media in Cornwall and telegraphy, since 1688, Falmouth was the hub of the Packet ships Post Office mail system. Newspapers were slow to develop in Cornwall. Despite the first British newspaper (London Gazette) starting in 1665, due to poor roads, and long distances, distribution of national newspapers did not start fully until the coming of the railways in the 1840s. Outside key urban areas like Truro and Falmouth, national news travelled slowly, and unreliably, by word of mouth.

Mines used cork bulletin boards displayed in “the dry”, a building used for miners to change in and out of work clothes. The information displayed included: employment, tin output, rates of pay (for piece workers) and new Resource extractions. Little information was passed on concerning news from the neighbouring village, or the next market town along the road.

Although the Cornish language had effectively died out by the early nineteenth century, dialects and accents remained strong throughout the whole of Cornwall. Different areas within Cornwall had their own variations from each other. It was more common for a miner, seeking work to travel from his home in West Cornwall to South Africa, than it was for him to travel to the Tamar Valley, or other mining locations within Cornwall. The communications with developing mining towns in the British Empire were better than they were within the county.

With the major slump in mining at the end of the nineteenth century, and the coming of the Great War, Cornwall was about to embark on a process of change, which has continued to the present day.

Telegraphy

The white pyramid which replaced a clifftop hut near Porthcurno at which the submarine telegraph cable from Brest in France was terminated

In 1869, John Pender formed his first telegraph company, the Falmouth Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Company, with the aim of completing the cable chain connecting India to England with cables via Gibraltar and Portugal. The company name was somewhat misleading as although Pender intended the cable to land at Falmouth, the final landing point was the more westerly Porthcurno, because of fears of shipping damaging the cables.

The completion of this cable in 1870 was the final link in the London to Bombay line. In 1872, this was one of the companies merged to form the Eastern Telegraph Company.

Established in 1872, the Eastern Telegraph Company was an amalgamation of a number of important smaller telegraph companies: John Pender, became the company’s Chairman, and Sir James Anderson, who had captained the Great Eastern on its successful laying of the 1866 Atlantic cable, was the General Manager.

The company developed a network of telegraphs by creating new routes and doubling and trebling cables on busy existing routes. In the early years of the 20th century, the Eastern became part of the Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies which incorporated many other telegraph companies from around the world.

Porthcurno’s telegraphic code name was “PK”. In 1929 the company began to operate world radio communications through a merger with Marconi’s radio network and it was renamed Imperial and International Communications. In 1934 the name changed once again to Cable & Wireless. At its height, Porthcurno was the world’s largest cable station, with fourteen telegraph cables in operation.

Although telegraphy itself is not generally regarded as mass media, as its communications are, in effect, on a one to one basis, the data and information that was transmitted through Porthcurno had both national and international importance. Wars were declared, announcements of deaths of royalty announced – these in turn were relayed to the national and local newspapers for the general public to absorb. Without telegraphy, there would have been little news in newspapers, and very little national and global content over the radio airwaves.

Newspapers and magazines

See also: Category:Newspapers published in Cornwall

History of Cornish newspapers

Royal Cornwall Gazette

The first newspaper printed and published in Cornwall was the Royal Cornwall Gazette, first published in 1801. It finally ceased publication in 1951, but formed the roots of today’s Packet Newspapers. It was published in Falmouth by a Cornishman, Thomas Flindell. Flindell was born in Helston in 1767, and he had previously been editor of the Doncaster Gazette. Unfortunately, the newspaper got off to a rocky start–Flindell’s business partners became bankrupt, and Flindell himself ended up in a debtor’s jail in Bodmin. The last edition appeared on 16 October 1802. All was not lost however, as Cornish landowners got a group subscription together, and Flindell offered his services as publisher and printer. The paper re-appeared, published in Truro on 2 July 1803. Two years later it was sold to Nettletons, and Flindell moved to Exeter to set up another newspaper there. The newspaper was mainly subscribed by doctors, bankers, lawyers and landowners, but it was also made available publicly to inns and guest houses, a process which made it more amenable to advertisers.

Although the Royal Cornwall Gazette was the first newspaper published within Cornwall, another regional newspaper, which had many subscribers and distribution throughout Cornwall, as far west as Penzance, was the Dorset based Sherborne Mercury, which started in 1737, and predates the national Times. It covered many Cornish news items, and was read by key businessmen and professional classes in the County. Archive copies are available in the Cornish Studies Centre in Redruth.

Flindell purchased large numbers of postage stamps from a stationers Messrs Tipper & Fry of Aldgate in London. He wrote requesting more stamps at election time. Despite use of stamps for getting copies of the newspapers out to his subscribers, he also used a large body of couriers to get the paper down throughout the County of Cornwall. He negotiated with organisers of markets to sell his newspaper direct from stalls on market days. The Gazette, however, despite Flindell’s best efforts, fell into the hands of the Tory Party. To counter balance this, the prominent Whig Party in Truro set up The West Briton in 1810, which is still published today, although now under the