J.N.Vlieland and daughter

Johnny of Norfolk

Said to be Cowper’s “Johnny of Norfolk” by William Blake.

                              

If you look closely at the marriage entre for Jerome  Nicholas Jansen de Vlieland, and his new wife Sarah Heath in 1824 at Hemblington Church, Norfolk you might notice the minister who officiated at this ceremony  was the Rev. Dr. John Johnson, (see blog 20^th May 2009).

 This is not an uncommon name and being so might not have aroused much interest, if you had not visited Hembleton Church and seen the plaque on the wall there to the memory of Sarah’s mother and father. It tells us they were William Heath and his wife Ann, who was daughter of John Johnson of Ludham, Norfolk.

Armed with this information and Google I started to do more research. It turns out that William Johnson of Holt 1668 – 1722 and his wife Ann Crofts 1694 -1722 had a son John born Holt 28^th May 1717 and died Ludham 26^th July 1785. 
One source believed this John to have been a tanner but others say a gentleman. 
It would seem he married 3 times and that Sarah’s mother Ann was by Hannah his first or second wife. 
The only son by any of these marriages to survive adulthood was John by his father’s third wife Catharine Donne born 15th July 1740 and daughter of the Rev. Roger Donne, (Rector of Catfield 1732-1773) and his wife  Harriet Judith Rival. It would seem Roger was the brother of Ann who was the mother of the great English poet and writer William Cowper. 
This made William Cowper the cousin of John Johnson’s mother Catharine. Roger and Ann were both Children of Roger Donne of Ludham Hall 1678-1722 and Catharine Clench 1675-1733

 It is said John Johnson first met William Cowper when he was in his early 20s and during his time at Cambridge. 
Cowper is said to have formed an affection for this “wild and bashful boy” which was reciprocated and named him his “Johnny of Norfolk”. 
Through his friendship with Cowper, Johnny circulated in the orbit of many well know artistic and literary people of excellence, including William Blake and William Hayley’s.
 During Cowper later years and declining health he moved from Olney in Buckinghamshire to Norfolk to be nearer and cared for by his Johnny. Cowper died at his house in the Market Place, East Dereham on 25 April 1800. In later life between 1815 and 1824 Johnny edited a number of Cowper’s works including poems, letters, and personal correspondence.

The Rev. Dr. Johnson himself was Educated at Holt Grammar School. He later had private supplementary tuition, followed by Caius College, Cambridge. 
He was ordained a deacon and priest in 1793.
 He became a Bachelor of Law in 1794, a Doctor of Law 1803.
 He was a curate of East Dereham, then Vicar of Hempnall and later became Rector of Yaxham with Welborne, Norfolk 1800-1833. 
He was locally known as a poet himself. Living at Yaxham, he married and had issue by his wife Maria Dorothy Livius. 
They were married 26 Aug 1808 Bedford.
 Decedents are still in contact with St Peter’s, Yaxham’s  Church.
 He was buried here 3^rd Oct 1833. Yaxham is a good 20 miles or more from Hembelton which means that to get to his half-sister’s daughter’s wedding he must have walked or more probably ridden the 20 miles plus to officiate.

Anyone interested in finding out more on his life and works will be surprised at how much they can learn by using the search engine Goggle and by entering a mix of the following. Johnny of Norfolk ---William Cowper and John Johnson---William Blake and John Johnson---William Hayley and John Johnson---John Johnson of Yaxham. I have found some of the entries facts were incorrect. Especially one particular site, so I did take my information back to parish records and correspondence of the day in the hope this window into his life would be as accurate as possible.    

 Thanks Gilly for this information !

Bury and Norwich Post 24 November 1847

More information 

John Johnson of Ludham

L´esperance

French knitting

Millet 1814 Knitting French girl

Jerome´s sister Susan was French knitter.

Trying to find out what kind of profession that was you learn a lot .

Did you know that French knitting was used to decorate uniforms sometimes with gold thread.Used to  make buttons and even socks.

The long cords were rolled and stiched on the uiforms.

The knitting was also used as a kind of lacemaking.

A machine was invented  to make lace.

Back in 1812, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, a machine to make lace was invented in England by John Leavers. The basis of his machine was the Elizabethan "stocking frame", invented c.1589 by a Nottingham vicar,Rev. William Lee, to help his wife knit stockings. It worked a bit like "french knitting", where children make a knitted tube by winding wool round nails on top of a cotton reel.

In the meanwhile in france making fine lace became an important craft industry - it was hand-made by thousands of craftspeople in their own homes or in small workshops. 18th centurysmugglers took French lace into England, to avoid heavy import taxes. 

In the mid-18th century, the British government was fighting colonial wars against France in North America and India. Money was needed to pay for wars, so heavy taxes were levied on imported luxury goods like lace, brandy, gin, coffee and tea. At the same time, sailors along the Channel coast had fallen on hard times, and were glad to earn good money smuggling these goods across the channel from France and the Netherlands.
Napoleon banned the export of lace to England in 1808 and some of the skilled labourers went to England to try their luck there.

knitting Madame in 1814.


18th century

Knitting on frames, the precursor to modern knitting machines, became popular in the 1700s. Jeremiah Strutt of Derby invented the Derby Rib Frame in 1759. Samuel Betts improved on this and created a mechanism that allowed for knitting lace. In 1768, spurred by the popularity of brocade waistcoats, Crain and Porter created a color change mechanism. This eventually led to the development of punch cards for color changes, a system which some knitting machines still use today.

Jeroen Aldertszoon Vlieland.

                                         

In 1787 Jeroen Vlieland sailed his Topsham Post from Rotterdam to Topsham.
And he did this many times after that, at least once a week .
He took some passengers and mail.
He announced in the newspapers when he should sail .So people could bring the mail they had to him in the harbour..
When he sailed out , it was announced in the newspapers and when he was arriving as well .
In 1803 we find the last advertisement of him sailing to Topsham and in 1811 the ship l´esperance  last sailed by Jeroen Vlieland is sold in Rotterdam .
All those years Jeroen Vlieland is not found in the newspapers or in archives.
Did he live in England or in Rotterdam ? Was he a prisoner of war ? When and where did he die ?
Was he Yarhan the father of John Vlieland ?.

To avoid being captured the fishermen went in to mailservice.
The mail was important and should be intact on arrival.
So the ship and crew were regarded as neutral and were not captured.
Jeroen Vlieland had a mailservice Rotterdam -Topsham and advertised both in England and in Holland with his mailservice.

Caledonian Mercury - Monday 08 February 1802

Thursday 7-1-1802 Morning Post.
The letters on ships were important and always saved.
When a ship was captured the mail was always kept and is still kept in the national archives.
It was a way of gathering information.

1. 

we find him as well
In a Rotterdam newspaper in 1803 we find Jeroen Vlieland with his ship the Topsham Post sailing from Topsham to Rotterdam.

insurance by LLoyds of London source google books.

In ">LLoyds

It says
Nicholaus Montauban van Swijndrecht,Willem van Dam and sons and  Hubertus Montauban Van Swijndrecht brokers in Rotterdam will sell on Tuesday 7 September 1811 in the afternoon at 4 o´clock sharp in tavern The Swineshead in public an extra well sailed bomship named Lésperance last sailed by Jeroen Vlieland Length from prow 41 feet,width between the bolts 19 feet hollow in the holt under the deck 6 foot and 8 thumbs all in Amsterdam foot with all his spars standing sails ,anchors ropes and other shipstools  like it is as the moment on the westside ,next to the newstreet more information at the brokers named above.
A bomship ( comes frome bottomship ) is a special type of vessel .
It had a flat bottom and was dragged to the shore so it did not need a harbour to land.

a photo of a page from a wharfinger's journal from the port of Exeter, (Reference Devon Record Office a1/4) which shows the cargo of cloth on the Post van Topsham on its sailing for Rotterdam on 8 February 1791.
It shows the number of bales of cloth loaded aboard for that voyage, by each of the following merchants:
Weres & Co is the same as Thomas Fox of Wellington
James Pulling, Smales & Dennys, Benjamin Dickinson, John Besly, Messrs Dunsfords and George & William Lewis are all from Tiverton
Baring & Co are from Exeter.

Thanks to Peter Maunder for this great information.


Some transcripts used for insurance purposes of de jonge  Maria

More about Jeroen and his ships 

More about Jeroen Vlieland or in English Jerome Vlieland

Captain and his clothes.

Looking at the watercolour painting of Captain Vlieland and you notice things.
You see his clothes,book and chair and wonder what they tell you.
His hat and the way it stands up, has he a scarf underneath his hat, his beard is it fashion or belonging to a captains outfit?

We know that when captain Jan Vlieland escaped from the prison in Rotterdam he or his friend was dressed like this
In the Rotterdam  newspaper   of 21/12/1813
we find  the following.

On the 25 November 1813 is missing a person dressed in a brown woolen vest, a long white linen shirt with 24 smooth silver buttons,silver watch, silver chain.
Anyone who can point him out or return him to the madhouse (prison) in the highstreet will be paid a huge reward .

So what did the women and men wear about 1800.
To see how our ancestors were dressed we found this in Wikipedia

In the early 1800s, women wore thin gauzy outer dresses while men adopted trousers and overcoats.
Fashion in the period 1795–1820 in European and European-influenced countries saw the final triumph of undress or informal styles over the brocades, lace, periwig, and powder of the earlier eighteenth century. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, no one in France wanted to appear to be an aristocrat, while in Britain, Beau Brummell introduced trousers, perfect tailoring, and unadorned, immaculate linen as the ideals of men's fashion.
Women's fashions followed classical ideals, and tightly laced corsets were temporarily abandoned in favor of a high-waisted, natural figure.

The Schimmelpennink family .

And if you want to dress the same watch this clip.

Pickwick brewery

THE LONDON GAZETTE, APRIL 12, 1887.
NOTICE is hereby given, that the Partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned, Isaac
Belcher and Samuel Hale Smith, carrying on business as
Brewers, Maltsters, and Wine and Spirit Merchants, at
Pickwick Brewery, Gorsham, in the county of Wilts,
under the style or firm of Belcher and Smith, has this
day been dissolved by mutual consent. The business
will in future be carried on at the same address by
Thomas Pearman Stevens, by whom all debts due to the
late firm will be received. All debts owing by the late
firm will be paid by the undersigned, Isaac Belcher and
Samuel Hale Smith.—Dated this 4th day of April, 1887.
Isaac Belcher.
Samuel Hale Smith

The Falcon was owned by Thomas Pearman-Stevens, Pickwick Brewery of Corsham in Wiltshire in 1891. The business was acquired by Wilkins Brothers & Hudson Ltd of Bradford on Avon in 1896 with 20 tied houses. However, according to the 1903 petty licensing book, the Falcon was still owned by the Pickwick Brewery in 1903.

The pubs of the Wilkins Bros & Hudson Newtown Brewery were later acquired by Ushers Wiltshire Brewery. The Falcon Inn, however, was sold to Georges Bristol Brewery on 1st April 1926. The ownership later passed to the Courage Brewery.

The 17th century Falcon Hotel closed early in 2008 and it was feared that it would never again open as a pub. A controversial restrictive covenant was placed on the property by owners Enterprise Inns, that stipulated that the sale must be without a licence to sell intoxicating liquor. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and other interested parties are actively campaigning against these unjust restrictive covenants. However, common sense prevailed and the restrictive covenant was removed from the Falcon which began trading once more in the summer of 2009.

It is now owned by Tynedale Inns and the interior has been sympathetically redesigned. Real ales are now served direct from casks from behind the bar. The Falcon has survived against all odds.

Detail:

Map Reference: ST 759933

Owner in 1891: Thomas Pearman-Stephens , Pickwick Brewery, Corsham, Wilts

Rateable Value in 1891: £14.10s.0d.

Type of licence in 1891: Alehouse

Owner in 1903: Pickwick Brewery

Rateable Value in 1903: £14.10s.0s.

Type of licence in 1903: Alehouse

Closing time in 1903: 11pm

Owner in 1926: Georges & Co, Bristol Brewery

Present Status: Currently closed (March 2009)
Landlords:

1820,1830 Thomas Cary

1849,1863 George Hobbs Minett

1867 Elizabeth Wiles (Mrs)

1879,1881 James Derrett (born 1826 in Wotton under Edge)

1885 Elizabeth Derrett (Mrs)

1889 John Merson Baxter

1891 Laura Isabel Randall

1899 J. Saywood

1902,1903,1910 Caleb Goddard

1919,1927 John Hy. Goddard

1933,1939 Percival Stephen Harper

? William Charles Hooper

? Arthur Nicklin

? James Bond

? Raymond Cross

? John Bartram

1977 - March 1989 William and Irene Suffell

1997 Alison Neave

1997 (Nov) - 1998 (Jan) Mike Birch (former Gloucester rugby player)

1998 Steve Mirfin (manager)

2000 Chris Marchant (owner), Mike Donnelly (deputy manager)

2002 Brigitte Appleyard and Martyn Mould (who afterwards moved to the White Lion in Long Street)

2009 Wendy Turner

Pandora

Semaphore line

There was a desperate need for swift and reliable communications in France during the period of 1790–1795. It was the height of the French revolution, and France was surrounded by the enemy forces of Britain, the Netherlands, Prussia, Austria, and Spain. The cities of Marseillesand Lyon were in revolt, and the British Fleet held Toulon. In this situation the only advantage France held was the lack of cooperation between the allied forces due to their inadequate lines of communications.

A semaphore telegraph, optical telegraph, shutter telegraph chain, Chappe telegraph, or Napoleonic semaphore is a system of conveying information by means of visual signals, using towers with pivoting shutters, also known as blades or paddles. Information is encoded by the position of the mechanical elements; it is read when the shutter is in a fixed position. These systems were popular in the late 18th to early 19th century.[1][2][3]In modern usage, "semaphore line" and "optical telegraph" may refer to a relay system using flag semaphore, and "optical telegraph" may refer to a heliograph (optical telegraphy using mirror-directed sunlight reflections).

Semaphore lines were a precursor of the electrical telegraph. They were far faster than post riders for bringing a message over long distances, but far more expensive and less private than the electrical telegraph lines which would replace them. The distance that an optical telegraph can bridge is limited by geography and weather; thus, in practical use, most optical telegraphs used lines of relay stations to bridge longer distances.



Claude Chappe

Optical telegraphy dates from ancient times, in the form of hydraulic telegraphs, torches (as used by ancient Greeks) and smoke signals.

Modern design of semaphores was first foreseen by the English scientist Robert Hooke, who first gave a vivid and comprehensive outline of visual telegraphy to the Royal Society in a submission dated 1684 in which he outlined many practical details. The system (motivated by military concerns, following the recent Battle of Vienna in 1683) was never put into practice.[4][5]

The first achieved optical telegraph arrived only in 1792 from the French engineer Claude Chappe and his brothers, who succeeded in covering France with a network of 556 stations stretching a total distance of 4,800 kilometres. It was used for military and national communications until the 1850s.

Many national services adopted signaling systems different from the Chappe system. For example, Britain and Sweden adopted systems of shuttered panels (in contradiction to the Chappe brothers' contention that angled rods are more visible). In Spain, the engineer Agustín de Betancourt developed his own system which was adopted by that state. This system was considered by many experts in Europe better than Chappe's, even in France.
[edit]France

A Chappe semaphore tower nearSaverne, France


The Chappe brothers in the summer of 1790 set about devising a system of communication that would allow the central government to receive intelligence and to transmit orders in the shortest possible time. On March 2, 1791 at 11 A.M., Chappe and his brother sent the message “si vous réussissez, vous serez bientôt couverts de gloire” (If you succeed, you will soon bask in glory) between Brulon and Parce, a distance of ten miles (16 km). The first means used a combination of black and white panels, clocks, telescopes, and codebooks to send their message.

The Chappes carried out experiments during the next two years, and on two occasions their apparatus at Place de l'Étoile, Paris was destroyed by mobs who thought they were communicating with royalist forces. However in the summer of 1792 Claude was appointedIngénieur-Télégraphiste and charged with establishing a line of stations between Paris and Lille, a distance of 230 kilometres (about 143 miles). It was used to carry dispatches for the war between France and Austria. In 1794, it brought news of a French capture of Condé-sur-l'Escaut from the Austrians less than an hour after it occurred. The first symbol of a message to Lille would pass through 15 stations in only nine minutes. The speed of the line varied with the weather, but the line to Lille typically transferred 36 symbols, a complete message, in about 32 minutes.

Paris to Strasbourg with 50 stations was the next line and others followed soon after. By 1824, the Chappe brothers were promoting the semaphore lines for commercial use, especially to transmit the costs of commodities. Napoleon Bonaparte saw the military advantage in being able to transmit information between locations, and carried a portable semaphore with his headquarters. This allowed him to coordinate forces and logistics over longer distances than any other army of his time. However because stations had to be within sight of each other, and because the efficient operation of the network required well trained and disciplined operators, the costs of administration and wages were a continuous source of financial difficulties. Only when the system was funded by the proceeds of its own lottery did costs come under control.

In 1821 Norwich Duff, a young British Naval officer, visiting Clermont-en-Argonne, walked up to the telegraph station there and engaged the signalman in conversation. Here is his note of the man's information:


The pay is twenty five sous per day and he [the signalman] is obliged to be there from day light till dark, at present from half past three till half past eight; there are only two of them and for every minute a signal is left without being answered they pay five sous: this is a part of the branch which communicates with Strasburg and a message arrives there from Paris in six minutes it is here in four.
[edit]Description

The Chappe brothers determined by experiment that it was easier to see the angle of a rod than to see the presence or absence of a panel. Their semaphore was composed of black movable wooden arms, the position of which indicated alphabetic letters. With counterweights (named forks) on the arms, the Chappe system was controlled by only two handles and was mechanically simple and reasonably robust. Each of the two 2-metre-long arms showed seven positions, and the 4.6-metre-long cross bar connecting the two arms had four different angles, for a total of 196 symbols (7x7x4). Night operation with lamps on the arms was unsuccessful.

To speed up transmission and to provide some semblance of security a code book was developed for use with semaphore lines. The Chappes' corporation used a code that took 92 of the basic symbols two at a time to yield 8,464 coded words and phrases.

From 1803 on, the French also used the 3-arm Depillon semaphore at coastal locations to provide warning of British incursions.
Sweden

Replica of Swedish optical telegraph tower.

At the same time as Chappe, the Swedish inventor Abraham Niclas Edelcrantz experimented with the optical telegraph in Sweden. In 1794 he inaugurated his telegraph with a poem dedicated to the Swedish King on his birthday. The message went from the Palace inStockholm to the King at Drottningholm.

Edelcrantz eventually developed his own system which was quite different from its French counterpart and nearly twice as fast. The system was based on ten collapsible iron shutters. The various positions of the shutters formed combinations of numbers which were translated into letters, words or phrases via codebooks. The telegraph network consisted of telegraph stations positioned at about 10 kilometres from one another.

Soon telegraph circuits linking castles and fortresses in the neighbourhood of Stockholm were set up and the system was extended to Grisslehamn and Åland. Subsequently telegraph circuits were introduced between Gothenburg and Marstrand, at Helsingborg and between Karlskrona and its fortresses. Sweden was the second country in the world, after France, to introduce an optical telegraph network. The Swedish optical telegraph network was restricted to the archipelagoes of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Karlskrona. Like its French counterpart, it was mainly used for military purposes.
U.K.

Lord George Murray, stimulated by reports of the Chappe semaphore, proposed a system of visual telegraphy to the British Admiralty in 1795.[3] He employed rectangular framework towers with six large octagonal shutters on horizontal axes that flipped between horizontal and vertical positions to signal [6] . The Rev. Mr Gamble also proposed two distinct five element systems in 1795: one using five shutters, and one using five ten foot poles.[3] The British Admiralty accepted Murray's system in September 1795, and the first system was the 15 site chain from London to Deal.[7] Messages passed from London to Deal in about sixty seconds, and sixty-five sites were in use by 1808.[7] Each shutter was five feet high.[1] In 1816, Murray's shutter telegraphs were replaced by simpler semaphores invented by Sir Home Popham.[2] A Popham semaphore was a single fixed vertical 30 foot pole, with two movable 8 foot arms attached to the pole by horizontal pivots at their ends, one arm at the top of the pole, and the other arm at the middle of the pole.[1][2] The signals of the Popham semaphore were found to be much more visible than those of the Murray semaphore.[1] Popham's 2-arm semaphore was modeled after the 3-arm Depillon French semaphore.[1]

Chains of Murray's shutter telegraph stations were built along these routes:

Diagram of U.K. Murray six-shutter system, with shutter 6 in the horizontal position, and shutters 1-5 verticalLiverpool - Holyhead

Liverpool, Bidston, Hilbre Island, Voel Nant, Foryd, Llysfaen, Puffin Island, Point Lynas, Carreglwyd, Cefn Du, Holyhead [8]London - Deal and Sheerness

Admiralty (London), West Square Southwark, New Cross, Shooter's Hill, Swanscombe, Gad's Hill, Callum Hill, Beacon Hill (Faversham, branch point), Shottenden, Barham Downs, Betteshanger, Deal.

(branch) Beacon Hill (Faversham), Tonge, Barrow Hill, Sheerness.London - Great Yarmouth

St Albans High Street in 1807, showing the shutter telegraph on top of the city's Clock Tower.

Admiralty (London), Hampstead Heath (Telegraph Hill), Woodcock Hill, St Albans, Dunstable Downs, Lilley Hoo, Baldock, Royston, Gog Magog Hills, Newmarket (Side Hill), Icklingham,Barnham, East Harling, Carleton Rode, Wreningham, Norwich, Strumpshaw, Great Yarmouth.London - Portsmouth and Plymouth

Admiralty (London), Chelsea Royal Hospital, Putney Heath, Cabbage Hill, Netley Heath,Hascombe, Blackdown, Beacon Hill (branch point), Portsdown Hill, Portsmouth (Southsea Common).

(branch) Beacon Hill, Chalton, Wickham, Town Hill, Toot Hill, Bramshaw, Pistle Down,Chalbury, Blandford racecourse, Belchalwell, Nettlecombe Tout, High Stoy, Toller Down, Lamberts Castle, Dalwood Common, St Cyrus, Rockbeare, Gt Haldon, South Knighton, Marley, Lee, Saltram, Plymouth.

The shutter stations were temporary wooden huts, and at the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars they were no longer necessary. In 1816 they were replaced by a simpler semaphore system.[3] However the Admiralty decided to establish a permanent link to Portsmouth and built a chain of semaphore stations. These were operational from 1822 until 1847, when the railway and electric telegraph provided a better means of communication. The semaphore did not use the same locations as the shutter chain, but followed almost the same route with 15 stations -

Admiralty (London), Chelsea Royal Hospital, Putney Heath, Coombe Warren, Coopers Hill, Chatley Heath, Pewley Hill, Bannicle Hill,Haste Hill (Haslemere), Holder Hill, (Midhurst), Beacon Hill, Compton Down, Camp Down, Lumps Fort (Southsea) and Portsmouth Dockyard. The semaphore tower at Chatley Heath, which replaced the Netley Heath station of the shutter telegraph, has been restored by Surrey County Council and is open to the public.

A semaphore-based successor for the London to Plymouth shutter telegraph chain, branching much closer to London, at Chatley Heath in Surrey, was started but abandoned before completion.

Many of the prominences on which the towers were built are known as 'Telegraph Hill' to this day. As in France the network required lavish amounts of money and manpower to operate and could only be justified as a defence need.
[edit]Other countries

Optical telegraph of Claude Chappe on the Litermont near Nalbach, Germany.

Optical telegraph in the harbour ofBremerhaven, Germany.

Once it had proved its success, the optical telegraph was imitated in many other countries, especially after it was used by Napoleon to coordinate his empire and army. In most of these countries, the postal authorities operated the semaphore lines.

In Canada, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent established the first semaphore line in North America. In operation by 1800, it ran between the city of Halifax and the town of Annapolis inNova Scotia, and across the Bay of Fundy to Saint John and Fredericton in New Brunswick. In addition to providing information on approaching ships, the Duke used the system to relay military commands, especially as they related to troop discipline. The Duke had envisioned the line reaching as far as the British garrison at Quebec City. However, the many hills and coastal fog meant the towers needed to be placed relatively close together to ensure visibility. The required labour to build and continually man so many stations taxed the already stretched-thin British military and there is doubt the New Brunswick line was ever in operation. With the exception of the towers around Halifax harbour, the system was abandoned shortly after the Duke's departure in August 1800.[9][10]

In 1801, the Danish post office installed a semaphore line across the Great Belt strait,Storebæltstelegrafen, between islands Funen and Zealand with stations at Nyborg on Funen, on the small island Sprogø in the middle of the strait, and at Korsør on Zealand. It was in use until 1865.[11]

The Kingdom of Prussia began with a line 750 kilometres long between Berlin and Coblenz in 1833, and in Russia, Tsar Nicolas I inaugurated the line between Moscow and Warsaw(1200 km) in 1833; this needed 220 stations manned by 1320 operators.

In the United States the first optical telegraph was built by Jonathan Grout. It was a 104-kilometre line connecting Martha's Vineyard with Boston, and its purpose was to transmit news about shipping. One of the principal hills in San Francisco, California is also named "Telegraph Hill", after the semaphore telegraph which was established there in 1849 to signal the arrival of ships into San Francisco Bay.

The semaphores were successful enough that Samuel Morse failed to sell the electrical telegraph to the French government. However, France finally committed to replace semaphores with electric telegraphs in 1846. Note that electric telegraphs are both more private and almost completely unaffected by weather. Many contemporaries predicted the failure of electric telegraphs because "they are so easy to cut."[12] The last stationary semaphore link in regular service was in Sweden, connecting an island with a mainland telegraph line. It went out of service in 1880.

In Ireland, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817) proposed a telegraph there when a French invasion was anticipated in 1794, and again in 1796; however, the proposal was not implemented. Soon, the British forces fighting Napoleon in Portugal found that the Portuguese army had a very capable semaphore system giving the Duke of Wellington a decisive advantage in intelligence.
[edit]Semaphore in fiction
Pavane, an alternate history novel by Keith Roberts, features a society where long distance communication is by a network of semaphores operated by the powerful Guild of Signallers.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels describe a system of 8-shutter semaphore towers, known as Clacks.
In Chapter 60 ("The Telegraph") of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, the title character describes with fascination the semaphore line's moving arms. "I had often seen one placed at the end of a road on a hillock, and in the light of the sun its black arms, bending in every direction, always reminded me of the claws of an immense beetle..." He later bribes a semaphore operator to relay a false message in order to manipulate the French financial market.
In chapter 10 of C. S. Forester's Hornblower and the Hotspur, the destruction of a French semaphore tower and a shore battery is a key plot point. A similar event is also the focus of the seventh episode of the A&E Horatio Hornblower series,
In David Weber's Safehold series, a world-wide Semaphore system is used by the Church to help them maintain their dominion over the world.
In Alastair Reynolds' Terminal World, the distant-future terrain is criss-crossed with semaphore lines relaying information between the one remaining city, Spearpoint, outlying communities and the airborne community Swarm.
In the young adult fiction book Death Cloud by Andy Lane, Mycroft Holmes tells 14-year-old Sherlock Holmes about semaphore stations, commenting about his school beforehand, saying "All the Latin a boy can cram into his skull, but nothing of practical use."
[edit]See also
Aldis lamp
Flag semaphore
Heliograph
Railway signalling
Signal lamp
Telegraph Hill, for a list of telegraph hills
Semaphore Flag Signaling System
[edit]References

Crowley, David and Heyer, Paul (ed) (2003) 'Chapter 17: The optical telegraph' Communication in History: Technology, Culture and Society (Fourth Edition) Allyn and Bacon, Boston pp. 123–125

^ a b c d e f Chapter 2: Semaphore Signalling ISBN 9780863413278 Communications: an international history of the formative years R. W. Burns, 2004
^ a b c Telegraph Vol 10, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 6th Edition, 1824 pp. 645-651
^ a b c d Telegraph, Volume 17 of The Edinburgh encyclopaedia, pp. 664-667, 1832 David Brewster, ed.
^ The Origin of the Railway Semaphore
^ History of the Telephone part2
^ Lieutenant Watson's Telegraph Mechanics' magazine, Volume 8 No. 222, Knight and Lacey, 1828, pages 294-299
^ a b F.B. Wrixon (2005), ISBN 9781579124854 Codes, Ciphers, Secrets and Cryptic Communication pp. 444-445 cover Murray's shutter telegraph in the U.K., with codes.
^ Faster Than The Wind, The Liverpool to Holyhead Telegraph, Frank Large, an avid publication ISBN 0952102099
^ Raddall, Thomas H. (1971), Warden of the North, Toronto, Canada: McClelland and Stewart Limited.
^ Rens, Jean-Guy (2001), The invisible empire: A history of the telecommunications industry in Canada, Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press.
^ The Age of Invention 1849–1920, Post & Tele Museum Danmark, website visited on May 8, 2010.
^ Holzmann, Gerard. "Data Communications: The First 2500 Years". Retrieved 28 June 2011.
[edit]Further reading
The Old Telegraphs, Geoffrey Wilson, Phillimore & Co Ltd 1976 ISBN 0900592796
Faster Than The Wind, The Liverpool to Holyhead Telegraph, Frank Large, an avid publication ISBN 0952102099
The early history of data networks, Gerard Holzmann and Bjorn Pehrson, Wiley Publ., 2003, ISBN 0-8186-6782-6
Semaphore Signaling, Chapter 2 of: Communications: an international history of the formative years, R.W. Burns, Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2004 ISBN 9780863413278
[edit]External links
Chappe's semaphore (an illustrated history of optical telegraphy)
Webpage including a map of England's telegraph chains
Diagrams and maps of Murray's U.K. semaphore stations
Photo and diagrams of Popham's U.K. semaphore stations
Map of visual telegraph (semaphore) and electrical telegraph lines in Italy, 1860 (in Italian)