Development of the Anglo-Indian telegraph

Between the end of the Indian Mutiny in 1857 and 1870, four Anglo-Indian telegraph routes were constructed. The first of these, via the Red Sea, was abandoned in 1861 leaving the British and Indian Governments to honour their guaranteed annual payments of 4½% on the capital invested. The second, via the Persian Gulf was completed in 1865 but proved difficult to operate without English speaking telegraphists through the Ottoman Empire. The third, via Siemens´ Russian network and north Persia and employing English operators, reduced the mean time for telegrams to less than one day but was rapidly in competition with a submarine cable from Cornwall to Bombay via the Mediterranean. The author, a grandson of one of the Anglo-Indian telegraphists, reviews some contemporary records of the telegraph routes