Description
The earliest souvenir underwater telegraph cables are those sections of the first transatlantic telegraph cable from 1858. Many were made into a souvenirs and sold and guaranteed as authentic by Tiffany & Co., New York. That cable is 5/8 inches in diameter and made of a cluster of seven copper wires, covered with three coats of gutta-percha and wound with tarred hemp, over which a sheath of 18 strands, each of a cluster of seven steel wires, that are laid in a close spiral. The offered example is larger than such Tiffany souvenir cables and is otherwise of a different configuration and size that does not match any of the known early Atlantic Cables (1858, 1865, 1866).
The Silvertown Telegraph Works had its antecedents in a manufacturer known as S.W. Silver & Company, founded by Samuel Winkworth Silver. The name Silvertown was derived from the founder’s name. It was used to describe the Woolwich Reach section on the north bank of the Thames where a factory for making insulated wires and cables, among other products, was established by Silver in 1852. In 1860, Silver’s business was merged by his sons and others into the India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company (IRGP). This new company included the Silvertown Telegraph Works and held numerous valuable patents for the manufacture of gutta-percha, a resinous substance that was used in making underwater telegraph cables. In 1865, IRGP produced their first submarine cable running from Dover England, to Cap Gris Nez in France. Submarine cables produced at Silvertown proved to be of great interest to the public; an 1875 article in a Victorian periodical about Silvertown extolled the virtues of Silvertown-made cable, and colorfully described it as “a mighty steel-clad serpent, strong enough to encounter the perils of the deep sea.” They subsequently provided underwater cables for numerous other ventures. In 1933, IRGP was the subject to a corporate takeover.
One of the world’s foremost authorities on the history of underwater sea cables, Bill Burns, notes the existence of about 700 different underwater cables used around the world that were made in the 1860s to early 1900s period. Burns has included books for eight of the Silvertown/IRGP projects on his definitive website, as referenced below. From this he has estimated that the main period for the laying of submarine telegraph cable produced by Silvertown/IRGP was from the early 1880s through 1907, at which time they left this particular aspect of their operations. In reference to the offered specimen, including the identification number 04267 inscribed on it, he offered the following analysis:
[W]hile the core of each cable (copper + insulator) remained the same throughout its length, the armoring varied from relatively light weight for the deep sea sections to much heavier for the shore ends. A project could use no less than three types of armoring, and sometimes more depending on the terrain. I believe that each project used sequential numbers for each type of armoring, and the number on [your] cable sample reflects this. Unfortunately, the manufacturing records for the company are long since lost, so there’s no way to link the numbers to a specific project.
The books for eight of the projects [on the “History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications” website] are available as full text, and in some of those the construction of each section of the cable is described in detail. It might be possible to match the characteristics of your sample (ten armoring wires and 10 around 1 copper conductor) to a cable section described in one of the books, but this is a long shot as only a few expeditions are covered. I can say that the 10 around 1 conductor was adopted in the 1880s, so your section is almost certainly dated c. 1880 – early 1900s.
This conductor design packed more copper into a specific conductor diameter than the usual 6 around 1. If you compare the conductor of [your] Silvertown section with that any of the first Atlantic cables you’ll see the air gap between the individual copper wires is reduced, and this improved the transmission speed of the cable and hence the volume of traffic it could carry.
Condition: Generally very good, with the usual overall light wear and handling, the cable with light oxidation of the metal.
References:
“1866 Cyrus Field: The Laying of the Atlantic Cable.” CanadaHistory.com. https://canadahistory.com/sections/documents/news/1866_atlantic_cable.html (16 July 2024).
Burns, Bill. Email conversation with George Glazer Gallery, August 22, 2024.
Burns, Bill. “History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications.” https://atlantic-cable.com/ (16 July 2024).
Burns, Bill. “History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications.” Cable Report Books
https://atlantic-cable.com/CableCos/Silvertown/books.htm (August 22, 2024)
Klara, Robert. “To Make Tiffany & Co. a Household Name, the Luxury Brand’s Founder Cashed in on the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Craze.” Smithsonian Magazine. (2024). https://tinyurl.com/yn9jrcz7 (16 July 2024).
“Submarine Cable Frequently Asked Questions.” Telegeography.com. https://www2.telegeography.com/submarine-cable-faqs-frequently-asked-questions (July 20, 2024).
