Before the Electric Telegraph Company established something approaching a national system in 1848 several railway companies offered public messaging.
The Great Western Railways’ pioneer short line from Paddington in London to Slough originally charged a flat rate of 1s 0d for any length of message in 1843. By 1846 this had become 2s 0d for a message not exceeding twenty words, with 6d for every subsequent ten words. Answers under ten words were free, answers over ten words were half-rate. Entry to the stations to look at the instruments was 1s 0d throughout this early period.
The London & South-Western Railway adopted a completely different tariff in 1846: ignoring distance, it was based entirely on message length. The cost between any two stations on their line from Nine Elms in London to Southampton and Portsmouth was:
Message Answer
Under 20 words 3s 0d 2s 0d
20 to 30 words 4s 6d 3s 6d
40 to 60 words 6s 0d 5s 0d
60 to 80 words 7s 6d 6s 6d
80 to 100 words 9s 0d 8s 0d
Spectators wishing to view the instruments paid 1s 0d.
The South Eastern Railway worked the telegraph between London and Dover and over all its branches in 1846. It then charged the following public message rate for up to twenty words from its London Bridge terminus: to Tunbridge 5s 0d, Tonbridge Wells 6s 0d, Folkestone 10s 6d, Dover 11s 0d, Canterbury 10s 6d and to Ramsgate 12s 6d. From twenty to forty words were charged double and from forty to sixty words treble the above rate. The public were not allowed in the South-Eastern’s instrument rooms.
As the only railway company retaining control of its circuits after the formation of the Electric Telegraph Company the South Eastern consistently kept a high tariff. On November 17, 1851 the railway grudgingly introduced a flat rate of 5s 0d for a twenty word message and 3d a word, over its entire system, but its rates did include an answer in the original cost.
The Eastern Counties Railway advertised a public message tariff between all of its stations in 1846; for up to thirty words from London to Colchester the cost was 3s 6d, to Cambridge 3s 6d, to Ipswich 5s 6d, to Norwich 7s 6d and to Yarmouth 9s 6d. Thirty word messages to the suburban stations in London from its Shoreditch terminus were 2s 0d. A flat rate of 1s 0d for every subsequent ten words and 1s 0d a mile for delivery was charged.
The Midland Railway in December 1846 worked the telegraph for public messages between the towns of Leeds, Normanton, Sheffield, Derby, Rugby, Tamworth, Birmingham, Nottingham, Newark and Lincoln.
The charge made by the Midland for under ten words was 1d a mile; above ten words and under twenty, 1½d a mile; above twenty words and under thirty, 3d a mile; and for every additional ten words ½d a mile; messengers to deliver the message from any station on foot would be charged at 1s 0d, or by post-chaise at cost. In the case of any message failing through the defect of the instrument or neglect of the railway company’s servants the money would be refunded. Messages regarding lost luggage on the railway were sent free-of-charge. This tariff ended in 1848.
c.] Telegraph Company Message Pricing
From its inception the Electric company used a message length of twenty words for publicising its pricing. The cost of a twenty-word message became the industry norm for determining prices. As well as “words” all numbers and punctuation had to be spelt out. Additions such as underlining, italic text, parenthesis and inverted commas were charged as two words. At this period the delivery of the message within one-half mile of the receiving office was free, but the words in both the sender’s and recipient’s addresses were charged for. There was also then a minimum charge.
Between 1848, when the major English and Scottish cities were first in circuit, and March 1850 the Electric company charged 1d a mile for twenty words for the first fifty miles (i.e. 4s 2d), ½d a mile for the second fifty miles (i.e. 6s 3d) and ¼d a mile for distances beyond. Half-rate was charged for each additional ten words or fraction thereof. Actual examples of the confusing basic tariff for a twenty-word telegraphic message from London, in place from January 1, 1848 until March 1850, were:
Southampton..........5s 6d
Yarmouth...............7s 0d
Birmingham............6s 6d
Manchester.............8s 6d
Liverpool................8s 6d
Berwick...................12s 0d
Bristol.....................13s 0d
Glasgow...................14s 0d
Edinburgh...............16s 0d
The maximum charge for twenty words over any distance was fixed at 10s 0d in March 1850; this was reduced to 8s 6d in March 1851, when a “simplified” charge of 3d a word for over twenty words or half-rate for ten words was also introduced.
For important messages
Repetition was recommended; for a further half-rate charge on the message cost it would be transmitted back to the sender by the receiving office to ensure accuracy.
There was an extra charge on top of repetition for Insured Messages. This applied to communications that had monetary value, mercantile buying and selling orders, for example. In 1848 for a premium of 12½ per cent the Electric Telegraph Company would be responsible for losses due to errors in transmission for sums up to £1,000. The maximum premium was 2s 6d which applied to liabilities of £1,000 and over. The premium had reduced to 10% of the liability by 1860 but this was payable with no upper limit.
The Magnetic and United Kingdom companies both had a limit for compensation of £5 for errors in repeated messages, but they charged only a 1% premium for their Insured Messages. In any case, repetition was rarely, and insurance almost never used by the message sending public.
All of the Special Acts authorising the companies had clauses indemnifying them from damages caused by errors in transmission of ordinary public messages. Repetition and Insurance as premium services were there to justify this legal indemnity. Although tested in the Courts the companies were never to be found liable for errors. Public messages with any sort of error were said, in 1853, to be one in every 2,400 sent, which was thought acceptable.
For a single charge of 2s 6d travellers could book carriages, post-horses, refreshments, beds or other accommodations at all towns where the Company had a telegraph station. Lost luggage could also be sought for the same flat-rate.
In the Company’s early years, until about 1850 or 1851, before public knowledge and confidence was established, the majority of its messages out of London consisted of bulk news and commercial information carried by contract at a discounted rate, set by negotiation, or for its own subscription news-rooms.
In July 1853 the Electric Telegraph Company introduced a 1s 0d message rate for twenty words between its eighteen branch offices in London; the railway stations at Euston Square, King’s Cross, Shoreditch, Fenchurch Street, London Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, Paddington, Blackwall and Highbury; and 43 Mincing Lane; the General Post Office; 30 Fleet Street; 448 West Strand; 17a Great George Street; 89 St. James's Street; 1 Parkside, Knightsbridge; 6 Edgware Road; and London Docks. It also offered a promotional message rate between its metropolitan offices of 4d for a message of ten words at the same time; but this was not continued.
The message rate to and from the London branches and the provinces was the same as for Founders’ Court.
In November 1853, as competition began to be felt, the overall pricing structure was again slightly simplified – the charge for a twenty word message under 50 miles became 1s 0d, under 100 miles became 2s 6d, beyond 100 miles it cost 5s 0d. The 3d a word charge for more than twenty words and the half-rate for ten words ad-ditional was continued.
Commencing in June 1854, as a further concession, but only in response to competition, the words in the addresses of sender and recipient were sent free-of-charge. At the same time the Electric offered Special Rates for twenty words where the competition was strongest. The 112 miles between London and Birmingham were charged at 1s 0d; and the 210 miles to Liverpool, the 180 miles to Manchester and the 309 miles to Carlisle at 2s 6d. The average message length then was calculated at twenty-three words, of which seven represented the sender’s and recipient’s addresses.
During August 1855 the Magnetic and British Telegraph companies both agreed a joint rate structure with the Electric company.
For the four-and-a-half-years between July 1855 and January 1860 the cost of a twenty word message on the Electric’s circuits, with addresses “free”, was 1s 0d within London, 1s 6d within 50 miles, 2s 0d within 100 miles, 3s 0d within 150 miles, 4s 0d over 150 miles and 5s 0d to Dublin in Ireland. The rate within 200 miles was reduced in 1860 to 2s 6d from 4s 0d.
Delivery of the message by messenger on foot, termed at the time porterage, was free-of-charge under a half-mile from the receiving office; from a half to one mile it was 6d, from one to two miles 1s 0d and from two to three miles 1s 6d. Delivery “express” by horse-cab was also free under a half-mile; from a half to one mile it was 1s 0d, from one to two miles 2s 0d and from two to three miles 3s 0d.
In 1853 the British Electric Telegraph Company had the following rates for a twenty word message throughout its 42 station network in the north of England and the west of Scotland: under 30 miles 1s 0d, under 100 miles 2s 6d and over 100 miles 5s 0d. The 5s 0d rate applied only to messages to its disconnected station in London, forwarded over the wires of the “old” Electric Telegraph Company. The British company, unlike the Electric company, also levied an additional 6d fee for delivering each message. However, it also marketed a 1s 0d for twenty word rate between six pairs of large cities in its catchment area.
The English & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company introduced a reduced tariff in May 30, 1854 between London, Liverpool, Manchester and Carlisle at 2s 6d for twenty words; and for Birmingham to London, Liverpool or Manchester, and vice versa, at 1s 0d. Direct connections were also promoted to Scotland, and Belfast, Dublin, Galway, Cork and Queenstown in Ireland.
The opening of the “Submarine & European Telegraph”, the united trading title of these companies, was advertised in Liverpool on May 12, 1854 with a cost for twenty words to London of 2s 6d (previously 5s 0d), Manchester 1s 0d and Birmingham 1s 0d (formerly 2s 6d, an additional ten words now 6d originally 1s 3d). There was no charge for name and address, or porterage for the first mile. The Electric company promptly matched these rates.
The “Submarine & European Telegraph” also promoted much simplified city-to-city rates with just two tariffs for twenty words, either 1s 0d or 2s 6d. But it possessed only a very limited number of public offices: in London at 30 Cornhill, City, 43 Regent Circus, West End, and the House of Commons, as well as in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Gravesend, Chatham, Canterbury, Dover and Deal.
The European, British and Magnetic companies, singly and as merged, understandably offered message rates broadly comparable to the Electric company’s; and just as complex; although it was through their competitive influence that the Electric company gradually reduced its rates throughout the 1850s.
d.] The Price Cartel 1855
Once the European company opened its circuit to Liverpool on May 10, 1854 it began a vicious price war with the Electric Telegraph Company. The cost of a twenty word message to London was reduced from 5s 0d to 2s 6d, and messages between Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, previously 2s 6d, were reduced to 1s 0d. On its merger with the British company this combative policy was extended: messages from London to Leeds and Hull, formerly 5s 0d, were now charged at 2s 6d, with reductions of from 25% to 40% for distant stations such as Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Glasgow.
In July 1854 the new British Telegraph Company, the combined British and European firms, charged the following national message rates for twenty words: under 50 miles 1s 0d, under 100 miles 2s 0d, under 200 miles 2s 6d, under 300 miles 3s 0d, over 300 miles 4s 0d, with no charge for address of sender or recipient, with no charge for porterage under one mile, where messengers were kept, otherwise 1s 0d a mile was charged outside a one-mile radius; and 3d a word extra, or one-half the above rates for any number not exceeding ten words.
The British company’s rate in 1855 from London to Belfast was 7s 0d; Birmingham 1s 0d, Glasgow 4s 0d, Greenock 4s 0d, Hull 2s 6d, Leeds 2s 6d, Liverpool 2s 6d, Manchester 2s 6d and Newcastle 3s 0d.
The effect of this discounting was disastrous. The British company was forced to suspend its half-yearly dividend for July 1855. On August 31, 1855 the British Telegraph Company, the English & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company and the Electric Telegraph Company ended price competition and adopted a common message tariff for Great Britain and Ireland.
On its inception by merger in 1857 the British & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company adopted the same message charges as the Electric company had fixed in June 1855. The only exceptions to this were for messages to Ireland, where the Electric had only a limited presence; 5s 0d for twenty words to most of its 83 stations there and 6s 0d to the remote Atlantic coast towns.
The South Eastern Railway Company, with its independent telegraph, reduced its messages rates considerably from January 1, 1856 to something approaching those of the telegraph companies. The rate for twenty words on its own system became 1s 0d within 25 miles, 1s 6d between 25 and 50 miles, and 2s 0d over 50 miles, with a surcharge of 1s 0d applied to messages sent on Sunday. Delivery was free within a half mile, as were names and addresses. The telegraph company rates were applied in addition for messages to the rest of the world. The railway charged four words in code as twenty words!
Eventually, by the mid-1860s, the South Eastern Railway adopted a flat rate charge of 1s 0d for a twenty word message between any of the stations on its own system, and 6d for every extra ten words or part of ten words. Addresses and delivery remained free and the extra charges still applied.
In January 1861, the Electric company adopted a 6d rate for twenty words for all messages between its London stations to combat the new London District Telegraph Company that offered fifteen words for 6d.
The United Kingdom company introduced the flat rate of one shilling for a twenty-word message throughout its system; its rates were 1s 0d for the first twenty words and 3d for each additional five words or part of five words irrespective of distance; with the options of repetition and insurance of messages. It commenced working message traffic in 1861 and from November 1861 the other companies adopted these rates wherever the United Kingdom company opened competing offices. The original shilling rate did not include delivery but by 1862 porterage under a mile was free.
This rate was never remunerative and effective price competition lasted four years, 1861 until 1865.
In the face of flat rate competition in February 1862 the Electric and Magnetic adopted a new common tariff. The charge for messages to any part of Great Britain, not exceeding twenty words, was: within 25 miles, 1s 0d; within 50 miles, 1s 6d; within 100 miles, 2s 0d; within 200 miles, 2s 6d; within 300 miles, 3s 0d; within 400 miles, 4s 0d. Special exceptions were made in the cases of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham (i.e. where the United Kingdom company had offices): the charge to these places being 1s 0d per 20 words. For messages of twenty words to distant cities in Ireland: Queenstown, Galway, and Londonderry, 6s 0d; to all other Irish stations, 5s 0d for 20 words (Seven words were allowed in addresses without charge).
Delivery of a message over the first free half-mile incurred an escalating range of fees. By foot messenger a distance of 1 mile added 6d, 2 miles 1s 0d, and 3 miles 1s 6d extra. By Express messenger, fly (hired coach), cab, horse or rail 1s 0d a mile was charged. For forwarding a message by post 1d was added, and by railway parcel in Britain or by road coach in Ireland, 1s 0d.
Messages sent on Sundays were charged 1s 0d extra.
Within Ireland in 1862 the Magnetic company offered similar zone tariffs: 1s 0d, 1s 6d and 2s 0d with a maximum of 2s 6d for twenty words. The Electric company then had, in addition to its cable to Dublin, only a handful of stations in the south, based around Cork, Waterford and Wexford; between which it charged 1s 0d and 2s 0d, with a cheap-rate 6d tariff from Cork to its suburb of Queenstown, copying that of the Magnetic company. It charged 2s 6d for messages to Dublin, the same as the Magnetic, but sent them via England by its South-of-Ireland and Holyhead cables. Both companies then charged a flat-rate of 5s 0d for twenty word messages from Ireland to all of their English stations.
In March 1864 the rate for twenty words from London to Scottish stations was reduced to 3s 0d. Later in that year, in August, the common tariff of the Electric and the Magnetic was reduced and simplified further: for 50 miles or less, 1s 0d; for 100 miles or less 2s 0d; for 200 miles, 2s 6d, and for 300 miles, 3s 0d. The exceptions for London (6d), the stations competitive with the United Kingdom company (1s) and Irish stations remained.
In 1860 the Channel Islands Telegraph Company and the Electric Telegraph Company charged 3s 0d for twenty words from the islands to Weymouth, where the English cable landed, 4s 0d to Southampton, 5s 0d to London, and 5s 8d to Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, and the same costs in reverse, using the country’s longest domestic cable. Messages between the islands of Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney were 1s 0d. If sent to England via Paris and the Submarine company’s circuits, the charge was 11s 6d, reduced in 1862 to 7s 6d. By 1868 this had become 6s 8d to and from London, and 7s 8d to and from British provincial stations.
The Isle of Man Telegraph Company and the Electric Telegraph Company latterly charged 4s 6d for twenty words between stations on the island and all stations on the British mainland.
The Electric Telegraph Company’s
Average Message Cost