1999 Award: Best museum of Industrial History of the year

Press Release - November 1999

Museum of Submarine Telegraphy Wins National Award!
The Museum has won the "National Heritage/NPI Award" for the "Best Museum of Industrial History". It was also shortlisted to the national top 6 for the overall "Museum of the Year" award.

Sponsored by Unilever, this award is a significant achievement for the museum and does credit to the work of everyone who has helped turn Porthcurno into a significant historical site. The award was presented to Mary Godwin by Sir Jocelyn Stevens, Chairman of English Heritage at a ceremony in London on the 2nd November.

The citation was as follows:
"In the final analysis, other candidates were overtaken by a new initiative in Porthcurno, a remote coastal village of Cornwall, where the British end of the first all submarine cable to Bombay was brought ashore in 1870. For the following 100 years Porthcurno remained a working telegraph station, linking Britain with the rest of the world and its history has now been preserved in the telegraph station built underground during the Second World War to protect it from possible enemy attack. The museum explains the development of international telecommunications by means of archive materials, lively displays and hands on exhibits, with former employees of the Cable & Wireless company on hand to show how things worked. The co-operation of the company with the Trevithick Trust (responsible for protecting 'Cornwall's industrial archaeology) and the local authority enabled this site to be developed (with the help of Lottery funding) and the new museum and allied facilities to be set up to provide a significant cultural boost to this remote area."

Our success was based on not only the content of the museum itself but on the close relationship we have with business, the local environment and local organisations.

Last year the museum had 5000 visitors. This year numbers have more than doubled to 12,000 and the target for next year is 15,000. The publicity from this award will hopefully help the museum to achieve this visitor growth and increase its revenue.

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