The project stemmed from an agreement between the American Cyrus Field and the Englishmen John Watkins Brett and Charles Tilston Bright, and . The Atlantic Telegraph Company was incorporated in December, 1856 with £350,000 capital, raised principally in London, Liverpool, Manchester and, Glasgow. The board of directorswas composed of eighteen members from the United Kingdom, nine from the United States, and three from Canada. The original three projectors were joined by E.O.W. Whitehouse as chief electrician. Curtis M. Lampson served ably as vice-chairman for over a decade.
The board recruited the physicist William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), who had publicly disputed some of Whitehouse's claims. The two enjoyed had a tense relationship before Whitehouse was dismissed when the first cable failed in 1858.
The next expedition in 1866 was a success, also succeeding in recovering the lost second cable. The service generated revenues of £1000 in its first day of operation. The approximate price to send a telegram was: one word, one mile (1.6 km)= $0.0003809.
Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company works, at Enderbys Wharf, .
The board recruited the physicist William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), who had publicly disputed some of Whitehouse's claims. The two enjoyed a tense relationship before Whitehouse was dismissed when the first cable failed in 1858. Later that year, another attempt was made to connect North America and Europe. This attempt was completed on July 29, 1858 and was celebrated by an exchange of messages between Queen Victoria of England and President Buchanan of the United States using the new cable line.[1]
When a second cable, under Thomson's supervision, was proposed, the Admiralty lent the hulks of HMS Amethyst and HMS Iris to the Company in 1864, both ships were then extensively modified in 1865 for ferrying the Atlantic cable from the works at Enderby's wharf, in East Greenwich, London, to Great Eastern at her Sheerness mooring. A new subsidiary company, the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, under the chairmanship of John Pender was formed to execute the new venture.
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- ^ Dobkin, Josephine C. (2006). "The Laying of the Atlantic Cable: Paintings, Watercolors, and Commemorative Objects Given to the Metropolitan Museum by Cyrus W. Field". Metropolitan Museum Journal. 41: 155–15. ISSN 0077-8958.