The Electric & International Telegraph Company's Map of the Telegraph Lines of Europe 1856

This map, issued by The Electric & International Telegraph Company, shows the European telegraph lines operated by the company in 1856. The map is printed with red lines indicating all lines already in operation as well as those under construction whilst red dots indicate the location of telegraph stations. The lines stretch from Madrid in the west to the crimea in the east, from Sweden in the north to Tunis and Algeria in the south. Printed along the left hand margin of the map is a list of all the Company's telegraph offices in the UK. On the right hand margin is printed a list of all the company's continental stations. At the bottom is printed a list of the company's offices in London, its headquarters listed as the Central Station, Founders' Court, Lothbury.

The Electric and International Telegraph company was formed in 1854 with the merger of the Electric Telegraph Company and the International Telegraph Company. The electric telegraph was initially developed to provide an effective communication and signalling system for the expanding railway network. By 1848, 1,000 miles of railway were equipped with telegraphic wires transmitting messages and Greenwich Mean Time to over two hundred principal towns. Lineside wires became a familiar feature of the landscape. In Hard Times Charles Dickens wrote of Mrs Sparsit observing the electric telegraph wires ruling ‘a colossal strip of music-paper out of the evening sky’.

Working together the steam engine and the telegraph formed a formidable partnership and were referred to by Punch magazine as ‘the two giants of the time’.