During the early 1850s, mail was delivered to goldmining towns by horse. News, no matter how important, might take days or weeks to arrive.
But the arrival of the electric telegraph in NSW was a significant event.
Traditional postal services (like mail coaches) remained important. For example, more than 10 million letters, parcels and newspapers were sent throughout NSW in 1870 alone.
But the new technology had many advantages.
- the wooden poles and wires were simple to build and install;
- it did not cost a lot of money to set-up; and,
- the infrastructure did not require a lot of maintenance.
Once established, people could send messages around the colony very quickly (sometimes within minutes).
Bathurst, a major gold mining town, was connected to Sydney in 1859.1
Other, smaller, rural towns were connected in later years.
Tens of thousands of kilometres of telegraph lines were built throughout the colony during the gold rush.2
The system would eventually connect all over Australia, as well as overseas to places like New Zealand and London.
For a small fee, messages were sent (using Morse code) from one telegraph station to another.
At the final destination, the message was written down and given to the recipient.
The electric telegraph became available to the public in late 1858 and quickly became popular.3
40,000 messages were sent in the first year. Six years later, this had increased to more than 140,000. By the end of the 1880s, millions of messages were criss-crossing the wires.
People used the electric telegraph for all sorts of important communications, including:
- personal or business messages;
- reporting news and events;
- transferring money;
- sharing information about the weather, or farm crops;
- items for sale, or the results of sales;
- for police, tracking criminals.
- 3. The Goulburn Herald, 19 May 1858, p2.
How did the telegraph affect bushrangers?
But by 1863, many of the rural areas, where bushrangers operated, had a telegraph station.
This made it much easier for the police to report bushranger crimes or sightings, then send reinforcements to where they were needed.
For example, when Ben Hall's gang was spotted in NSW, near the town Forbes in March 1865, the police used the telegraph to track them.
Ned Kelly destroys telegraph lines!
For example, Ned Kelly's gang bailed up the town of Jerilderie in NSW, in 1879 they went to the telegraph station and destroyed the wires and cut down the poles.
A witness describes what happened:
'We next went to the telegraph office, where we found Byrne [a member of the gang] who had all the wires cut. Ned Kelly pulled them about, and satisfied himself that they were broken.
Ned Kelly informed the telegraph master ... that he would shoot him if they attempted to mend the lines...'4
After the gang left someone rode ninety kilometres to the nearest town, Deniliquin, to report the crime using their telegraph office.
- 4. 'Mr Lyving's narrative', The Mercury 15 February 1879, p3.