Portsmouth Semaphore Telegraph Line
county:
county:
Surrey
West Sussex
parish:
county:
Portsmouth
Hampshire
Our telegraphs just as they are let us keep, / They forward good news from afar; / And still may send better - that Boney's asleep / And ended oppression and war. / Electrical telegraphs all must deplore / ...John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, replied to Sir Francis Rowlands, who had offered his invention of an electric telegraph, 1816:-
... telegraphs of any kind are now totally unecessary, and no other than the one now in use will be adopted.The one in use being an experimental semaphore telegraph from London to Chatham. The shutter telegraph was not resurrected during the Napoleonic Wars but a reinstatement scheme was planned, using a semaphore telegraph invented by Sir Home Popham. This is described in a book and an article:-
Popham, Home, Sir: 1816:: Transactions of the Society of Arts
Trials had established that semaphore was more effective than shutters, described in:-
An Act, 55 George III cap.128, passed 28 June 1815, 11 days after the Battle of Waterloo, was for Establishing Signal and Telegraph Stations. A new system had begun. Thomas Goddard, purser of the Royal george, was instructed to seek sites.
The Portsmouth semaphore line ran from London, via Putney Heath, Commbe Hill near Kingston, Claygate Hill, Pointers at Chatley Heath, Pewley Hill, Bannicle Hill near Witley, Haste Hill near Halsemere, Older Hill near Midhurst, then:-
William Cobbett saw these 'semiphores', and reported in Rural Rides, for example of the one at Haslemere:-
... one of these precious jobs called Semaphores. For what reason is this pretty name given to a sort of telegraph house, stuck up at publick expense upon a high hill?
