Negotiating the State: British Telegraphic Politics and Spaces, 1870-1912

This thesis explores the expansion of the British inland telegraph network following its nationalisation in 1870 under the auspices of the General Post Office. Rather than treating the telegraph as simply an extension of the state, this thesis foregrounds the entanglements through which the growth of the inland network was both constructed and contested. Reframing the telegraph not as a seamless tool of centralised governance, but as a site where authority and expertise were constantly in flux, this thesis uses four pivotal disputes to understand how the telegraph extended and expanded in the ways that it did; the guarantee formula, the wayleave contract, the procurement of telegraph poles and the Royal Engineer workforce. This thesis argues that the inland network's expansion was not shaped by top-down control of the centralised state, but was rather a fragmented and negotiated process. As a result, the expansion of the inland telegraph network emerges as a deeply contested project. By focusing outside of the discipline and governance which characterised the development of urban cityscapes, this thesis will demonstrate how these mechanisms of state were tested and reconfigured through different spatial frictions. Tracing the multiplicity of state and non-state, as well as human and non-human actors involved in the growth of the inland network, this thesis offers a relational picture of governance where abstract notions of authority and expertise were constantly negotiated. It demonstrates how the nineteenth and early twentieth century state’s ambitions of order and standardisation were continuously reshaped by everyday negotiations, technical frictions, and material obstacles. In doing so, the thesis positions the inland telegraph as a valuable tool through which to reconsider the government and state in Britain.<p></p>

Author dc:creator

• Megan Furr (21039893)

• history of telecommunications
• inland telegraph network

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved
• Open Access after 2027-05-13

Identifier

10779/exe.32270613.v1

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:figshare.com:article/32270613