Southport Cable Hut

About

Telegraph communication developed in the mid-19th century as a result of many years of discovery and experimentation in electrical communication culminating in the work of Samuel Morse. The rapid long-distance communication provided by telegraph systems had a major impact on society. The telegraph was quickly utilised by news services; Associated Press and Reuters press service were founded to take advantage of the technology. Telegraph companies soon offered financial services, providing the facility to send money orders via the telegraph.

In Australia the telegraph helped to alleviate the isolation of the colonies. New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia were connected by telegraph by 1860. Queensland's first telegraph connection was made in 1861 between Brisbane and Ipswich. Brisbane was linked to Sydney the same year.

The first telegraph link between Australia and Britain opened in 1872. The link was via the Eastern Cable Company 's network. It was routed through Singapore, India, Suez and Gibraltar. It was initially proposed to make landfall in north Queensland. However, the South Australian government successfully negotiated for the link to connect with Adelaide via Port Darwin and an overland route through the centre of Australia.

Before the Pacific Cable was opened, the Eastern Cable Company and its associates maintained a monopoly over international telegraph traffic with Australia. As a result, the cost of communication between Britain and Australia remained very high and beyond the means of most people.

Sandford Fleming, Chief Engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was an early advocate of an alternative cable route between Australia and Great Britain via Canada and the Pacific Ocean. He expressed his views as early as the Colonial Conference of 1887. A major advantage put forward by Fleming and other proponents of the Pacific route was that it would be more secure in times of war. The existing link passed through countries that were not part of the British Empire. The high cost of telegrams through the Eastern Cable Company 's system provided further motivation for a competing route. The proposed Pacific Cable would break the Eastern Cable Company's monopoly and lower the cost of communication between Britain and Australia. When the Pacific Cable opened, the cost of telegrams reduced to less than half the former rate. The ability to communicate directly with the United States and so access more trade opportunities was another argument in favour of the Pacific Cable.

It was proposed that the Pacific Cable would pass only through British dependencies. Approval was given at the Postal and Telegraphic Conference held in Brisbane in 1893. By the mid-1890s, agreement was reached that the cable should be laid. However debate about management of the cable laying project and ownership of the completed cable continued for some years. Finally, it was agreed that funding should be shared between the governments of Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The Pacific Cable Board was formed in 1896 with representatives from Britain, Canada and Australia. A survey of the route from Vancouver began in 1899. The - Pacific Cable Act 1901 ( 1 Edw. 7. c. 31) gave this board responsibility for managing the project and operating the completed cable and authorized the construction of the cable link between Australia and New Zealand, to the United Kingdom via Canada.

The site of the cable station in Southport was selected by R. E. Peake who was a member of Clarke, Ford and Taylor, the engineering firm responsible for the overall project and tasked with drawing up the plans and specifications of the cable station. Peake arrived in Australia in April 1901 to establish a location for the cable terminus in Australia and, on 30 May 1901, he visited Southport with the Acting Deputy Postmaster General, T. C. Scott. At the same time, a temporary cable station that had been previously constructed in England and dismantled for shipment to Australia was transported to Southport on the Maid of Sker and erected in the beach at Southport to act as a test house and temporary buildings for the equipment. At the end of July it was reported that a three-acre two rood site bordered by Bauer Street, Chester Terrace and Lenneberg Street had been selected for the station buildings. An additional eight-acre site bounded by Brighton Parade and the Nerang River was acquired for the cable landing.

In late 1901 the commonwealth government called for tenders to construct three buildings, including a central building housing the cable and land lines, with facilities for staff, and two separate houses to accommodate the cable superintendent and the land line superintendent. In April 1902, the tender was awarded to E Boyle to construct the wooden buildings within six months for a sum of £4,574 within. By the end of 1902, it was reported that the building to house the cable and land lines was near completion and the instruments housed in the test house on the beach were about to be relocated. The houses to accommodate the superintendents were not as well advanced. The cable station officially opened on 4 November 1902.

The route selected for the cable linked Southport, Norfolk Island, Fiji, Fanning Island, and Vancouver Island. A branch connected to New Zealand. Since cartographers of the day traditionally coloured member countries of the British Empire in red, the route became known as the All Red Route.

Cable laying started in 1902 with two ships, the Anglia and Colonia. They began laying cable from Bamfield, Vancouver Island, Canada, to Fanning Island, Suva, Norfolk Island and Southport, Queensland, Australia. Colonia, built specifically for the project, laid cable from Vancouver Island to Fanning Island in the mid-Pacific. Anglia laid cable from Southport to Norfolk Island, Fiji, New Zealand and Fanning Island.

The Cable Station landfall was at Main Beach, Cable Street passing under the river to the station at Bauer St, Southport. The cable was landed at Southport in March 1902. The Pacific Cable was completed on 31 October 1902 and officially opened at Southport on 3 November 1902 by the Postmaster-General of Australia, the Honourable James Drake ; the total cost was around 2 million pounds sterling.

The cable was laid into a trench through the dunes of Narrow Neck near Southport and terminated at a cable hut located close to the beach. From here, it connected to a cable which crossed under the Nerang River to the cable station at Bauer Street.

The first message was sent on 31 October and opened for the public on 7th 1902. It was opened to public traffic on 8 December 1902. Until 1912 Southport handled telegraph traffic for all over Australia. In 1912, a cable from Auckland was extended to Sydney and for a period after this, traffic for the southern States went directly to Sydney from Auckland.

There was only one serious interruption to the service during World War I, in 1914 when the Nurnberg, a German cruiser, cut the cable at Fanning Island.

Technical changes to the system in 1923, including the installation of automatic repeaters, relegated Southport to a repeater station. The Southport station continued to be operated by the Pacific Cable Board until 1932. Management was then taken over by Cable & Wireless.

During World War II, following the raid on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in December 1941, the Australian authorities, aware of the importance of the cable as the only link Australia had with the United Kingdom other than the Overland Telegraph and Middle East Route, straddling potentially hostile countries and aware of the possibility of enemy action, declared that schools in the Southport area should not open at the beginning of 1942. Some schools were evacuated to country areas. Following success in the Battle of the Coral Sea, it was felt this part of the country was safe from invasion.

In 1946 the Australian Government passed the Overseas Telecommunications Act, passing responsibility of the cable from the Pacific Cable Board to the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC).

In October 1962, the Commonwealth Pacific Cable System (COMPAC) cable between Sydney and Vancouver was completed. The original Pacific Cable was thus rendered redundant and the Southport to Norfolk Island cable was closed. The Cable Station at Bauer Street was sold to De La Salle Brothers who operated a community youth centre there.

In 1964 the property was sold to the de la Salle Brothers. Some of the equipment was used by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, The Royal Society, R.A.N. and C.I.S.R.O.

Historic site in Queensland, Australia Southport Cable Hut is a heritage-listed former telegraph station at Cable Park, Main Beach Parade, Main Beach, Gold Coast City, Queensland, Australia. The brick hut was the Australian terminal of the Pacific cable. By January 1950, the original cable hut located close to the beach at Narrow Neck had gone, leaving only a cement slab and a flag pole partly surrounded by a barbed wire fence. It is believed that it was destroyed in a severe storm. Serious erosion of the cable reserve by February 1951 threatened these remains and the cable connections located there. The current brick hut located at Cable Park was built during the first half of 1951 to remedy this situation.