Back Reflection Images courtesy of Atlantic-Cable.com
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or nearly one hundred years, since its inception in 1850, the submarine cable industry was predominantly a British story; however, there is little doubt that one of its founding fathers and the driving force behind the first Atlantic telegraph cable was an American businessman and financier. That man was Cyrus West Field (1819 – 1892). On 10 March 1854, Field formed the “New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company” with four other New York businessmen: Peter Cooper (chairman), Moses Taylor (Treasurer), and Marshall O Roberts and Chandler White (directors). The company was launched with a capital of $1,500,000 and its genesis marked the first tangible step in the famous adventure that was the Atlantic Telegraph. Although the majority of the money and virtually all of the engineering came from Britain, it was Field’s vision, enthusiasm and tenacity, over the next twelve years that kept the project moving forward, despite the many
by Stewart Ash
technical setbacks and significant financial losses that were incurred. Cyrus W Field was born on 30th November 1819 in Stockbridge Massachusetts, the sixth son and the seventh of nine children of a puritan clergyman David Dudley Field and Submit née Dickinson. At the age of 15 he left school and moved to New York where he became a clerk and errand boy in a large dry goods store, A.T. Stewart & Co. He worked there for three years and then moved to Lee Massachusetts where he worked in a paper mill, for two years with one of his elder brothers, Matthew Dickinson Field (1811 – 1870). In 1840, Field set up in the paper business for himself in Westfield Massachusetts where, at the end of that year he married Mary Bryan Stone. He very quickly became a partner in E Root & Co, a New York wholesale paper dealer, but within 12 months this business had failed and Field personally took on
the company’s debts, although he had no legal obligation to do so. Shortly after this failure, Field formed, in partnership with his brother-in-law, a paper manufacturing company, called Cyrus W Field & Co. This company was established to take advantage of the rapidly growing “penny press” market and the increasing demand for paper for stocks and bonds. By 1853, he had amassed a large personal fortune and had paid off the debts of E Root & Co in their entirety. He now had a large house at 1 Lexington Avenue in Gramercy Park, New York and was one of the wealthiest men in the city. At that point he took the decision, at the age of 34, to retire from active business. After Field retired, he chose to sponsor and accompany the Connecticut born painter, Frederic Edwin Church (1826 – 1900), on the first of many trips Church made to South America. Field planned to use Church’s paintings to encourage investors in a number of South American