The Atlantic Cable

The transatlantic connection was ‘an additional bond of union’, in the words of Queen Victoria to President Andrew Johnson, which strengthened the link between Britain and the United States.

Map of the 1858 trans-Atlantic cable routeVery early on July 28th, 1866, Reuter’s Telegram Company received news from Ireland that the shore end of the transatlantic cable had been spliced at 8.43 p.m. the previous evening in Newfoundland. Richard Glass, the managing director of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, had heard this from Daniel Gooch, the chairman of the syndicate that owned the Great Eastern.

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