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Back Reflection The Italian Perspective In these articles we have provided some information on the history of submarine cable manufacture in the UK, which dominated the industry for well over 100 years, in France (Issue 47) and Japan (Issues 48, 50 & 51) but until now we have neglected the Italians. The first submarine cable to be landed in Italy was laid between Spezia and Corsica in 1854 by John W Brett (1805-63) as part of his abortive plan to connect France with Algeria (Issue 73). The flowing year the Italian government contracted Glass, Elliot and Co to lay a cable across the Straits of Messina. Malta was connected to Sicily in 1859, and R S Newall & Co won a contract to connect Otranto to Valona in Albania the same year.
This was a lightweight cable which only lasted a few months. It was replaced by a more robust cable made by W. T. Henley’s Telegraph Works Co in 1864. Further short, regional cables followed in the 1860s and 1870s, but all these were manufactured in the UK and all were laid by British cable ships. Pirelli & C SpA was founded by Giovanni Battista Pirelli (18481932), in 1872, and quickly established itself in the market for rubber goods and later electrical cables. In 1884, Pirelli took the decision to enter the submarine cable market and built a cable armouring factory in La Spezia; the gutta percha covered core was made in its Milan factory. Much of the machinery was purchased in the UK and imported but some of it was made to Pirelli’s own
by Stewart Ash designs. The factory started producing armoured cable in 1886. In parallel with building the factory, an order was placed with Robert Thompson & Sons in Sunderland for a cable ship the Citta di Milano (I). She had the tank capacity to carry about 500km of cable and her first project was to lay the Massaua
The Founders of Pirelli
to Assab cable across the Red Sea in 1887. Cable production for this system was entrusted to Signor E Jona, a close colleague of Giovanni Pirelli; he was to earn the sobriquet “the father of the cable laying art in Italy”. Pirelli continued to win contracts for regional cables in the Mediterranean until 1919, but unfortunately the Citta di Milano (I) was wrecked off the coast of Sicily, at Fulicudi I s l a n d , during a cable repair operation. She was replaced by the Citta di Milano (II), in 1921.