Industrial Research at the Eastern Telegraph Company, 1872-1929
Noakes, Richard
Date: 10 April 2013
Article
Journal
British Journal for the History of Science
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publisher DOI
Abstract
By the late nineteenth century the submarine telegraph cable industry,
which had blossomed in the 1850s, had reached what historians regard as technological
maturity. For a host of commercial, cultural and technical reasons, the industry seems to
have become conservative in its attitude towards technological development, which ...
By the late nineteenth century the submarine telegraph cable industry,
which had blossomed in the 1850s, had reached what historians regard as technological
maturity. For a host of commercial, cultural and technical reasons, the industry seems to
have become conservative in its attitude towards technological development, which is
reflected in the small scale of its staff and facilities for research and development. This
paper argues that the attitude of the cable industry towards research and development was
less conservative and altogether more complex than historians have suggested. Focusing
on the crucial case of the Eastern Telegraph Company, the largest single operator of
submarine cables, it shows how the company encouraged inventive activity among
outside and in-house electricians and, in 1903, established a small research laboratory
where staff and outside scientific advisors pursued new methods of cable signalling and
cable designs. The scale of research and development at the Eastern Telegraph
Company, however, was small by comparison to that of its nearest competitor, Western
Union, and dwarfed by that of large electrical manufacturers. This paper explores the
reasons for this comparatively weak provision but also suggests that this was not
inappropriate for a service-sector firm.
History
Collections of Former Colleges
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