History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

1852 Anglo-Irish Cable
Holyhead - Howth

Holyhead, Wales - Howth, Ireland. Laid 12 July 1852.

The Gutta Percha Company supplied the core, which was armoured and laid by R.S. Newall & Co. using Britannia (1).

The system length was 65 nm., the cable consisting of one copper wire No 16 BWG, covered with gutta percha and armoured with twelve No 12 BWG galvanised iron wires.

The cable failed after three days; two further attempts also failed, and the first successful cable on this route was laid in 1855 by Newall for the Electric and International Telegraph Company .

Research Material Needed

The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible.

You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians.

If you have any cable-related items that you could photograph, copy, scan, loan, or sell, please email me: billb@ftldesign.com