Cable, telegraph cable

This is a shore end section of the 1865 transatlantic submarine telegraph cable. It was manufactured by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company at its works in Greenwich. The company was formed by a merger of the Gutta Percha Company and the Glass, Elliott and Company in 1864.

The 1865 cable was to be laid between the island of Valentia off the west coast of Ireland and Heart's Content in Newfoundland by the ship the Great Eastern. The cable broke during the first attempt and had to be abandoned on the sea bed, but it was repaired and completed by the Great Eastern in 1866.