Marc Fennell

In 1870, the telegraph industry was nationalised and in fact actually became part of the British Post Office.

By 1875, there were cables that linked Britain to America, India, Europe, the Far East, and yes, indeed, as far as Australia.

In England, they likened it, the telegraph system, to a nervous system.

It's funny, we live in an age of instantaneous communication and right now you're in London, I'm in Sydney and we have this easy conversation, which is of course the product of our modern age.

What strikes me about this story is that this...

incident is kind of one of those crucial inklings of what the future would become.

Certainly not the only one by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that it becomes public and it becomes written up in the newspapers, I think what stands out to me is that it's a moment where the public get to imagine the future that you and I are now literally, quite literally, living.

Yeah, there's a great, um, phrase.

I can't remember who actually said it, but it's like a writer, writer and engineer that described the telegraph as annihilating space and time.

Cassia, thank you so much.

This has been amazing.

Writer and cultural historian Cassius Sinclair there.

And if you want to hear other stories that Cassius told us, we will link them in the show notes.

There's a really great one about how bra makers helped put Neil Armstrong on the moon.

It's a fabulous episode.

And of course, this episode was produced by Zoe Ferguson and Rebecca Metcalf.

And the sound design was by Angie Grant.

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