Slave-chasing to seasickness, in the service of telegraph

There may seem little connection between slave ships in the Mozambique channel and Cornish cable telegraphy. However in August 1860 a small wooden-walled sailing ship HMS Brisk, true to her name, was successful in chasing and out-running the slaver 'Sunny South'. The exploit resulted in the release of 846 slaves, sadly not all of whom survived their ordeal. Nine years later the 'Brisk' was in British waters without a commission. That terrible trade in human lives had all but ceased, and the Admiralty did not know what to do with her.

If Nanjizal saw the first submarine cable expedition in Cornish waters, Porthcurno to the south east claims the honour of being the landing place for the first submarine cable in Cornwall that actually worked ! Nanjizals prior claim in this respect was a spurious one based on a hoax as described in the previous chapter. Porthcurno has had an uninterrupted connection with submarine telegraphy from 1870 until the present time, for in April of that year the mid-channel cable came into service. One end was connected by landline through to a tiny office in the Penzance butchers market, not perhaps the first place one would think of when needing to send a telegram. The other end went, not to some distant nation, but to the ex slave-chaser 'Brisk'. The Admiralty had found a use for her.

Until the advent of wireless telegraphy at the turn of the century, a ship beyond optical range of the shore was lost to civilisation until she made her next port, or more bewilderingly, didn't. True she might wag flags with other ships that passed, but keeping track of sailing vessels at the mercy of unpredictable weather, or giving last minute changes in sailing orders was fraught with difficulties. Lloyds of London had established a chain of signal stations on prominent headlands around Britain, and indeed the world, and had linked them telegraphically with London. For example one was established at Lizard Point, Britain's most southerly spot. Here the keeper would sit with his great tripod-mounted brass telescope and scan the horizon for ships, wiring the details back to London. The Electric and International Telegraph Company had been persuaded by Government, with the inducement of financial guarantees, to extend their line from Plymouth as far as the then commercially unprofitable area of Falmouth. A spur provided the link to the Lizard. The keeper, when he could not read a name or recognize a silhouette, could always resort to his semaphore or lamp to try and elicit a response "what is your name, where from, where bound, how many souls on board". Cornwall played its part in spreading this optical surveillance across the globe, even to remote outposts like lonely Ascension Island in the far south Atlantic which had its Lloyds observer linked by the spreading network of submarine cables fanning out from Porthcurno - but that is to jump ahead. We must return to the very first cable of 1870.

One of the hopes of the promoters of the 1869 Scilly cable was that it would entice homeward bound vessels to call and telegraph their impending arrival to mainland agents, or outward vessels to receive last-minute modifications to their sailing orders. Unfortunately Scilly was an inconvenient landfall, beset with many rocky hazards. How much easier if vessels could call at some convenient small island in mid-channel, far from reefs and treacherous shallows, somewhere south west of Lands End.

As Nature had not provided such an island, The International Mid-Channel Telegraph Company was formed to remedy this defect.They would provide their own 'island'. HMS Brisk was granted to them by the Admiralty, to be moored as a floating telegraph station in a suitable place some fifty miles offshore. Not only the benefits of telegraphy, but even a personal courier service, and the supply of emergency stores was proposed. Coals and victuals, and a ferry service by tender to the mainland (ideal for re-patriating outward bound stowaways) were all to be provided at a price. At the same time advance warnings of storms blowing in from the west, details of ships movements to Lloyds, and a regular commercial telegram service would complete the Brisk's many-sided activities. A lamp to show by night, a gun and bell in foggy weather, and flares every fifteen minutes, would signal her presence. Everything seemed to have been thought of, and as the vessel sailed to her station there were high hopes of having given her a useful and even lucrative new career.

She lasted about two months. What had not been reckoned with was the ever restless sea and its effect on the cable, and on the crew of floating telegraphers. The ship was quite unsuitable and rolled so heavily that the cable kept parting, and the operators who had trained as telegraphers and not as seamen, were too ill to worry overmuch when it did. Passing ships did not seem to want the coal and food so thoughtfully provided. Shipping companies had fewer last minute changes of mind than had been supposed, and it is doubtful if the rolling deck was the best platform for the Lloyds telescope, assuming anyone was fit enough to man it. The project was abandoned in June 1870.

Ironically at exactly the same time as the 'Brisk' was being withdrawn to the mainland, and the cableship 'Scanderia' was preparing to salvage the cable, the engineers at Nanjizal were making the final connections to the Scilly cable, and putting it into service. One-nil to Scilly!

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