This volume pays particular attention to Britains embeddednessand role in shapinga rapidly expanding global communications network. In particular, it reflects the links between communications and Britains imperial and colonial projects.
This volume pays particular attention to Britains embeddednessand role in shapinga rapidly expanding global communications network. In particular, it reflects the links between communications and Britains imperial and colonial projects. It covers:
- The development of imperial communication routes and infrastructures as well as, in the late nineteenth-century, the introduction of imperial penny postage.
- The ramifications of new technologies and media of communication for warfare and diplomacy between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of the First World War.
- Emigrants correspondence.
- The domestic significance of communication infrastructure in relation to British national identity.
- The 1874 establishment of the Union Postale Universelle and related initiatives to globalise communications.
Volume 4: Nation, Empire, Globe
General Introduction
Volume 4 Introduction
Part
1. Four Nations
1.1: Communications and National Identities
1. Post Office Communication with Ireland, The Surveyor, Engineer, and
Architect 3:31 (1842), pp. 207-209.
2. Barryhooragan Post Office, Household Words, 4:150 (1853), pp. 503-504.
3. Post-Office Shops, Chambers's Journal, 83 (1855), pp. 67-68.
4. A Provincial Post-Office, All the Year Round, 9:201 (1863), pp. 12-16.
5. The Post Office and the Highlands, Inverness Courier, 23 February 1871,
p.
5.
6. Edward Joseph Martyn, The Tale of a Town (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1902),
pp. 22-30.
1.2 Minoritised Languages and Postal Communications
7. The Gaelic Nuisance, Chamberss Journal, 3 November 1877, pp. 68991 p.
3
8. Welsh Gleanings', Cardiff Times, 28 January 1888, p.
1.
9. Welsh Demands. Postal Facilities', South Wales Echo, 10 April 1896, p.
3.
10. Extract from Mr. Herbert Lewis MP and Welsh Rural Postmen', Rhyl Record
and Advertiser, 18 April 1896, p. 8
11. The Rhyl Postmaster and the Welsh Language', Rhyl Advertiser, 23 June
1883, p. 3
12. A Post Office Customer, An Open Letter to the Postmaster of Llandilo,
J. Asher, Esq, and Fair Play, 'Llandilo Post Office Appointment', Camarthen
Weekly Reporter, 25 December 1896, p.
2.
13. Welsh Gossip', South Wales Daily, 17 December 1897, p. 4
14. Journeyman Subscriber, The Post Office in Wales, North Wales Times, 13
July 1901, p.
5.
15. Irish Language in the Post Office', House of Commons Debates, 25 March
1901, cc 1119-20, in The Parliamentary Debates (London: H.M. Stationery
Office, 1901)
Part 2: Beyond Britain and Ireland: Foreign Posts, Transnational Connection,
and International Relations
2.1 Expanding Penny Postage
16. Elihu Burritt, Ocean Penny Postage; its necessity shown and its
feasibility demonstrated (C. Gilpin, 1849), pp. 1-24.
17. Illustration: Ocean Penny Postage Envelope, Myers and Co, ca.
1850. Image
Credit: Mary Evans Picture Library
18. H.G. Adams, Send the Letters, Uncle John, in Elihu Burritt, Ocean Penny
Postage; its necessity shown and its feasibility demonstrated (C. Gilpin,
1849), pp. 29-31
19. Sophie, Sophies Petition to Uncle John, in Elihu Burritt, Ocean Penny
Postage; its necessity shown and its feasibility demonstrated (C. Gilpin,
1849), pp. 31-32.
20. John Henniker-Heaton, Universal Penny Postage, Fortnightly Review,
40:238 (Oct 1886), pp. 533-541.
2.2 Creating International Standards
21. Henry Derecourt, extracts from Colonial and International Postage: A
Collection of Extracts, Ideas, and Information on Postal Affairs and Post
Office Anomalies (London: Charles Cawley, 1854), pp. 5-9, 16-21, 38-40.
22. A Correspondent, The History and Constitution of the Postal Union,
Times, 15 August 1891, p.
12.
2.3 Cross-Channel Communications
23. Anon, Curiosities of the French Postal Service, Bentleys Miscellany,
61 (1867), pp. 592-601.
24. Anon, The Dover Packet Contract, Saturday Review, 9:231 (1860), p.
402.
25. Anon., The Fatal Collision off Dover, London Review,12:289 (1866), pp.
60-61.
26. John Fowler, The Channel Passage, The Nineteenth Century 11: 61 (1882),
pp.
337345.
2.4 Comparing Systems: UK and US
27. Article comparing British and American Telegraph Systems, Times, 9
February 1869, p.
9.
28. Werner, Government Telegraphs: Benefits of a Free and Promiscuous
Trade, The Operator, 7: 81 (1877), p.
5.
29. American Telegraphs, The Telegraphist, 1:10 (1884), pp. 121-122.
Part 3: Imperial Communications: Labour, Language, Politics
3.1 Indigenous Languages and Communication
30. The English Language in India, Leader and Saturday Analyst, 9:450
(1858), p.
1200.
3.2 The Aden Zanzibar Mail Packet and Abolitionist Discourse
31. Postal Communication (Aden and East Africa), House of Commons Debates, 5
May 1882 (vol. 269), cc.246-63, in Hansards Parliamentary Debates, 3rd
series, Vol 269 (London: Cornelius Buck, 1882)
32. Anon., Mail Service on the East Coast of Africa, Anti-slavery reporter
3:2 (1883), pp. 45-46
3.3 Communication Labour and Enslavement
33. Letter from D. Turnbull to Lord Palmerston on the Havana post, dated 18
December
1840. Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. West Indies Contract. Postage
collected at Foreign ports by HM Consuls acting as Packet Agents Post.
3.4 Imperialism and Communication Labour
34. Ethnographical Models, Tallis's History and Description of the Crystal
Palace and the Exhibition of the World's Industry in 1851, Illustrated by
Beautiful Steel Engravings - Volume 2 (London: The London Printing and
Publishing Company, 1852), pp. 192-193.
3.5 Imperial Penny Postage
35. John Henniker Heaton, A Penny Post for the Empire, Nineteenth Century,
27: 160 (1890), pp. 906-920.
4 Imperial Communications: Systems, Routes, and Infrastructures
4.1 Thomas Waghorn and the Overland Route
36. The First Courier in the World', Pictorial Times, 8 November 1845, pp.
9-11.
37. G. W. Wheatley, Some Account of the Late Lieut. Waghorn, R.N., the
Originator of the Overland Route', Bentley's Miscellany, 27 (Jan 1850):
349-357.
4.2 Passages to India
38. Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography (Edinburgh and London: William
Blackwood and Sons, 1883), p. 164-167.
39. Hyde Clarke, On a Daily Mail Route to India, Journal of the Society of
the Arts, 14: 797 (1868), pp. 276-284.
4.3 Experiencing Colonial Infrastructure
40. Rudyard Kipling, The Overland Mail, in Departmental Ditties, and other
verses, 8th edn. (London: George Newnes, 1899), pp. 50-51.
41. The Indian Post Office, Calcutta Review, 89 (1889), pp. 115-129.
42. Post and Telegraphs, in Arnold Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions of
Ceylon: Its History, People, Commerce (London: Lloyds Greater Britain
Publishing Company, 1907), pp. 207-208.
Section 4.4 Building Colonial Infrastructure
43. William Wilson Hunter, extract from Rulers of India: The Marquess of
Dalhousie (London: Henry Frowde, 1890), pp. 202-206.
44. Nawab Sultan Jehan Begum, Post and Telegraph in Hayat-i-shahjehani:
Life of her Highness, the Late Nawab Shah Jehan Begum of Bhopal, C.I.,
G.C.S.I. (Bombay: The Times Press, 1926), pp. 54-55.
45. T.A.C., Telegraph Construction in the Forest Primeval, Good Words, 19
(1878), pp. 430-432.
Part
5. Settler Colonialism and Emigration
5.1 Emigrants Letters
46. Charles Dickens, A Bundle of Emigrants Letters, Household Words, 1
(1850), pp. 19-24.
47. M. J. Thayers, Letters from Home, in A Wreath of Wild Flowers (Toronto:
Morton, 1877), p.
57.
48. Emilie Matilda Australie Heron, The Emigrants Plaint, in The Balance
of Pain and Other Poems (London: 1877), pp. 79-80.
49. Julia A. Mathews, extracts from Millies Journal; or The Emigrants
Letters (London: Joseph Masters, 1857), pp. 30-54
5.2 Experiencing Settler Colonial Infrastructure
50. K.J. Lord, 'Her Majesty's Mail in the Far West', Leisure Hour, 836
(1876), pp. 8-11.
51. A New Zealand Mail-Day', Argosy, 38 (1884), pp. 227-229.
52. 'Mail-Day at the Antipodes', Graphic, 20 July 1889, pp. 74-75.
Part
6. Resistance, Conflict, and War
6.1 The Telegraph in Crimea
53. 'Electric Telegraph for the Seat of War.--Plough for Laying the Wire',
Illustrated London News, 11 November 1854, p.
26. Credit: Illustrated London
News Ltd./Mary Evans Picture Library.
54. The Electric Telegraph, Times, 21 May 1855, p. 8
6.2 Mail Steamers and the US Civil War
55. Anon., America and our Mail Steamers, Liverpool Journal of Commerce, 26
December 1861, p.
3.
6.3 The 1857 Indian Revolt and Communication
56. Mutiny in India, Illustrated London News, 4 July 1857, pp. 1-2
57. P. V. Luke, How the Electric Telegraph Saved India, Macmillans
Magazine, 75 (1897), pp. 401-406
6.4 The Morant Bay Rebellion and Postal Infrastructure
58. Mr Lakes Report of the Trial and Statement of Elizabeth Jane Gough,
in Facts and documents relating to the alleged Rebellion in Jamaica, and the
measures of repression: including notes of the trial of Mr. Gordon (London:
Jamaica Committee, 1866), pp. 46-48 and p.
59.
6.5 Fictions of Resistant Labour
59. John Le Breton, Govind the Runner, Graphic Midsummer Number, 27 June
1908, pp. 885-888.
6.6 Military Signals
60. Richard Kerr, Supposed Oriental Powers of Signalling Through Space
without Wires, extract from Wireless Telegraph: Popularly Explained (London:
Seeley and Co., 1898), pp. 1-8.
61. How Soldiers Signal, Strand Magazine, 18:108 (1899), pp. 720-723
6.7 Communication and the Poetry of War
62. George Meredith, Grandfather Bridgeman, in The Poetic Works of George
Meredith (1919), pp. 1-28.
63. Thomas Hardy, 'A Wife in London', Poems of the Past and Present (London:
Macmillan, 1903), pp. 21-22.
Bibliography
Index
Karin Koehler is a Senior Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at Bangor University. Her research explores the relationship between nineteenth-century literature and connective infrastructure, focusing on Anglophone and Welsh-language material.
Nicola Kirkby held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Royal Holloway, London (2019-2023), investigating nineteenth-century infrastructure and literary culture. Her works include Railway Infrastructure and the Victorian Novel (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press).
Kathleen McIlvenna is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Derby. Her research focuses on histories of work, health and retirement in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
Ellen Smith is a historian and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol. Her work explores communication cultures in colonial South Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Harriet M. Thompson is Visiting Research Fellow in nineteenth-century literature and culture in the Department of English, Kings College London. Her research explores the relationship between communications technologies and print culture.
Eleanor Hopkins is a Senior Policy Adviser in Higher Education & Research at the British Academy. She provides strategic oversight of the Academy's Research & Development (R&D), innovation and skills policy.
