Post and Telegraphs Department

Also known as Posts and Telegraphs Department.

Tea District Post and Telegraph Department photographed by Samuel Cleland Davidson

FIBIS resources

• FIBIS database: Post Office of India during the Great War - 1914-1920. Appendix sections listing names of Europeans, Indian and Anglo-Indian Personnel who worked for the Indian Post Office during WW1.

Entry

• Entrance requirements c 1871 Telegraph Department India were withdrawn, page 169 and page 496 Index Scholasticus: Sons and daughters. A guide to parents in the choice of educational institutions, preparatory to professional or other occupation of their children by R. Kemp Philp 1872 Archive.org

Related Articles

• Postal Service
• Category:Post and Telegraphs images

External links

• Communications in India Wikipedia
• The telegram is dying by Shruti Chakraborty and Sidin Vadukut 27 September 2008. livemint.com Includes history and details about William Brooke O’Shaughnessy
• "Telephone Map of India 1934" British Library Untold lives blog 21 March 2019.

Historical books online

• An outline of postal history and practice with a history of post office of India by Ivie George Joseph Hamilton 1910. Download from Heidelberg University Digital Repository South Asian Studies. Also available Archive.org, mirror from Ministry of Culture/National Library of India, but note some pages near the front of the book, together with pages 129-174 are missing in the latter version.
• The Post Office of India and its Story by Geoffrey Clarke, Indian Civil Service 1921 Archive.org. “With sixteen illustrations”
• The Post Office of India in the Great War edited by H.A. Sams 1922 Archive.org. Contents
• Indian Postal Guide [October 1907] Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.
• Post Office Manual Volume V: Appendices containing Special Supplementary Rules and Regulations. Published under the authority of the Director-General of the Post Office of India Third edition 1908 Archive.org
• "Unicode": The Universal Telegraphic Phrase-book. A Code of Cypher Words for Commercial, Domestic and Familiar Phrases in ordinary use in inland and foreign telegrams, with a list of prominent commercial firms who are Unicode users 6th edition 1889 Archive.org

Probable 1903 edition, (although not cataloged as such) Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection. Generally poor quality print.

Henry S. King & Co.'s Hand book for homeward-bound travellers from India, Australia and the East 1893 National Library of Australia. Includes the telegraph code to be used, (from page 12) as words or phrases more than ten letters are charged double.

Word Code For Foreign State Telegrams, compiled for the Government of India. Part II-Code Phrase by J H Lane Indian Government Telegraph Department. 4th Edition prepared under the direction of J J Allen. Archive.org. Another file, easier to read in parts but some pages towards the back are scanned/printed upside down. Archive.org. Elsewhere 4th edition was published 1903 (3rd edition 1890 in two volumes Part 1 Phrase, Code]

Article "Compression, Correction, Confidentiality, and Comprehension: A Look at Telegraph Codes" by Steven M. Bellovin "Preliminary version – March 25, 2009". cs.columbia.edu

Article government and colonial administration codes jmcvey.net

Indo-European Telegraph

Telegraph Office , Calcutta

Indo-European Telegraph Department

• Indo-European Telegraph Department Encyclopaedia Iranica. Construction commenced 1863. While the IETD was an autonomous department for much of its existence, between February 1888 and April 1893, it was under direct auspices of the Director General of Indian Telegraphs. The IETD was dissolved in March 1931. There was significant intermarriage with Iranian Armenians.
  • "Scientific Instrument with a Story to Tell" by John Packer Bulletin of the Scientific Instruments Society No. 92 (2007), pages 17-18. now an archived webpage.
• An India List post indicates the IETD was sold to Cable and Wireless in 1931. Also includes some names of employees c 1930.
• 1859 Suez - Aden - Karachi Cable atlantic-cable.com
  • HMS Retribution assisted in laying the first submarine telegraph cable to India, in the section between Karachi and Aden in 1859.Memories of the Sea, page 155 by Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald 1913 Archive.org
• Indian Cables by Bill Glover atlantic-cable.com includes
  • Persian Gulf cables of 1864
  • 1869 Duplicate Cable

The through line to London opened to the public in March 1865

• 1864 Karachi - Bushire Cable atlantic-cable.com
• Telegraph Island The Indo-European Telegraph 1863-65 atlantic-cable.com
  • The hardship posting to end all hardship postings by Matthew Teller 24 October 2014. The telegraph station on Jazirat Al-Maqlab (Maqlab Island), now known as Telegraph Island. bbc.com/news
• India Office Records at the British Library Indo-European Telegraph Department IOR/L/PWD/7 1865-1931
• The formation of the Indo-European telegraph line : Britain, the Ottoman Empire and Persia 1855-1865 by Suliman Shahvar 1997 Thesis (Ph.D.) School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), British Library EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service)

"Wires of Discord: England, the Indo-European Telegraph Line and Ottoman-Iranian Border Conflicts" by Soli Shahvar, Iran Namag Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 2016. Article In Persian with Google Translate English version , or if link is unstable use Google Translate.

Historical books online

• "Report on the line of Telegraph from Ras Jashk to Basrah" by Lieutenant A. W. Stiffe, Indian Navy. (Read before the Society, March 17th, 1864), page 208 Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, Volume 17, January 1863 to December 1864 Google Books
• Telegraph and Travel: a narrative of the formation and development of telegraphic communication between England and India, under the orders of Her Majesty's government, with incidental notices of the countries traversed by the lines by Frederic John Goldsmid, late Chief Director of the Government Indo-European Telegraph 1874. File 1, easier to read Archive.org, Asiatic Society of Mumbai, Granth Sanjeevani Collection. File 2, with Map and perhaps better images Archive.org, mirror from Central Secretariat Library, Government of India. Map

The Indo-European Telegraph Company

• Indo-European Telegraph Company (Encyclopaedia Iranica) was privately owned and operated by the Siemens Company. Telegrams along this route commenced from India to London in January 1870
• The Indo-European Telegraph Company by Steven Roberts Also includes brief information about the Indo-European Telegraph Department atlantic-cable.com
• "Europe-India Telegraph “Bridge” via the Caucasus" by Andre Karbelashvili Indian Journal of History of Science 26 (3) 1991, pages 277-281. Alternatively from Archives at Indian National Science Academy Journals, or archived version.
• A Commemorative postage stamp on the Centenary of the Indo-European Telegraph Service issued 9 November 1967. istampgallery.com. This stamp probably relates to the foundation of the Indo-European Telegraph Company, or commencement of construction of it's line. Image of First Day cover.

Bombay - Aden – Suez Cable

• 1870 British - Indian Cable (Bombay - Aden - Suez) by Bill Glover atlantic-cable.com. The British-Indian Submarine Telegraph Company.
  • Documents reveal contents of the first telegraph message between India & England via thousands of km of cables laid below the seas, on 23 June, 1870. economictimes.indiatimes.com Feb 22, 2012.

Records

British Library

• Birth/baptismal certificates in Indian Telegraph Department candidates' application papers 1877-1878 IOR/L/PWD/2/220
• Birth/baptismal certificates in Indian Telegraph Department candidates' application papers 1865-1869 IOR/L/PWD/8/6
• Also see L/F/10 Records of Service 1702-1928
• Civil Lists IOR/V/13, V13/246-276. 1866 to c 1954. A researcher found a December 1929 death in Civil Lists Indian Posts and Telegraph Department May 1930 to April 1932, IOR V/13/260. This death was not recorded in the records on findmypast.

Individuals

• Dr. William Brooke O'Shaughnessy (1809-1889) - laid the first telegraph system in Asia in addition to his work as a doctor who discovered a modern treatment for cholera, and introduced cannabis to Western medicine.

Selections From the Records of the Bengal Government No.VII Report On The Electric Telegraph Between Calcutta And Kedgeree by W B O’Shaughnessy MD, Superintendent of the Electric Telegraph 1852 Google Books

Memoir of Surgeon-Major Sir W. O'Shaughnessy Brooke ... in connection with the early history of the telegraph in India by M Adams 1889 Archive.org . The subject assumed the name of Brooke by Royal Licence in 1861.

• Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Stewart, R.E. Director-General of the Indo-European Telegraph atlantic-cable.com
  

As part of the Telegraph Department, he played a significant role in the Indian Mutiny. He left England, at the close of 1863, to superintend the laying of the Indo-European sea-cable along the coast of Beloochistan and Persia. He died 16 January 1865 having just accomplished the most difficult part of his task by the completion of the telegraphic line from Bagdad, to Bushire.

• Major-General Sir Robert Murdoch Smith 1835-1900 an officer in the Royal Engineers who was seconded at the time to work on the development of the Persian telegraph, and became its Director. kilmarnockacademy.co.uk, now an archived page.
• "John Isaacson of Exning, Persia and India" by Tony Fuller and Jenny Law FIBIS Journal Number 3 (Spring 2000). FIBIS members may read this article online.

John Isaacson, who at the time was described as a "Sergeant, RE", arrived in Persia on 11 November 1863 and was posted to the Persian section of the IETD. He died in Bushire in 1892.

• "A chronological biography of Edward Graves" of the IETD, murdered 2 December 1897. dandadec, an archived page.