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The Gisborne Identity One hundred and fifty years ago, the Newfoundland Electrical Company, founded by Frederick Newton Gisborne (1824-1892), was declared insolvent. This failure was the catalyst for the start of the Atlantic Telegraph story, but it was just one of many hiatuses in the career of a remarkable man.
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Frederick Gisborne was an Englishman, born in Broughton, Lancashire, where he was educated by the town vicar. As a young man he travelled extensively to Australia, Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand and Tahiti. In 1845, he went to Canada and took a job on a farm in St Eustache, Quebec, here he became interested in and began studying, electricity and telegraphy. In 1846, he gave up farming and took a job with the Montreal Telegraph, where he trained as an operator. Thanks to the experience gained, his expertise in electrical telegraph grew to such an extent that, by 1847, he was in a position
by Stewart Ash
to establish and take a leading role in the British North American Telegraph Association. The objective of this group was to extend telegraphic communications from Montreal to the east coast of Canada. While head of this association Gisborne supervised the installation of 112 mile line between Quebec and Rivière du Loup. Gisborne moved to New Brunswick where he tried to convince the Government to build a telegraph system to connect with the Quebec network. His representations fell on deaf ears as the Government was much more interested in a telegraph to Maine in the USA. By 1849, Gisborne had moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia and there he took up the post of General Superintendent of the Nova Scotia Telegraph Company. His first task was to supervise the construction of a line between Halifax and Amherst, Massachusetts. The completion of this link, connect Halifax to the North American telegraph network, which was extremely important to Halifax businesses, particularly the newspaper industry. The
reason for this was that news carried by ships from Europe, docking in Halifax, could be telegraphed to cities in the USA and published quicker than could be achieved by ships sailing to New York. The idea of early delivery of European news resonated with Gisborne and he began to hatch a plan to extend the telegraph network to St John’s Newfoundland, which was North America’s most easterly port. Although, at that time, transatlantic vessels did not regularly stop in St John’s, Gisborne believe it could be made a hub for European news, because, once connected to the North American network European news could be distributed 24-48 hours ahead of news via vessels arriving at Halifax or New York. Gisborne began detailed plans for his St John’s telegraph, while still working in Halifax. He petitioned the Newfoundland Government to grant him the right to build two telegraph systems. The first was to construct lines from St John’s to Carbonear