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3 - Redeeming Failure

The Joint Committee Investigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2020

Bruce J. Hunt
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
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Summary

After the failure of the first Atlantic cable, proponents of oceanic submarine telegraphy sought to parry claims that the task they had attempted was simply impossible and to argue that it instead resulted from a series of correctable errors. Their first step was to pin as much blame as they could on Wildman Whitehouse while separating his practices from those of proper electrical scientists and engineers. The Atlantic Telegraph Company then teamed with the British government to establish a Joint Committee to investigate how such disasters might be avoided in the future. In 1861 the committee issued a massive Report that identified the rationalization of methods and standardization of materials as keys to bringing order and reliability to an industry that had hitherto lacked both. The Joint Committee Report exemplified the power of expertise backed by official authority, and it soon became the bible of British cable practice as the idiosyncratic methods of Whitehouse and other cable amateurs gave way to William Thomson and Latimer Clark’s emphasis on precise and standardized measurement. Guided by this new measurement-based approach to telegraph engineering, the Atlantic cable project was resurrected and would finally succeed in 1866.

Type
Chapter
Information
Imperial Science
Cable Telegraphy and Electrical Physics in the Victorian British Empire
, pp. 97 - 143
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Redeeming Failure
  • Bruce J. Hunt, University of Texas, Austin
  • Book: Imperial Science
  • Online publication: 11 December 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108902700.004
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  • Redeeming Failure
  • Bruce J. Hunt, University of Texas, Austin
  • Book: Imperial Science
  • Online publication: 11 December 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108902700.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Redeeming Failure
  • Bruce J. Hunt, University of Texas, Austin
  • Book: Imperial Science
  • Online publication: 11 December 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108902700.004
Available formats
×