Armoured submarine cable across the English Channel
Cable submarino armado del Canal de la Mancha
- Date
- 1850-1851 · confidence high
- Place
- Dover, Kent, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Jacob and John Watkins Brett; R. S. Newall
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
The gutta-percha-insulated copper cable of 1850 between Dover and Calais failed the next day, but the 1851 one, with iron armouring around four conductors, withstood the currents and worked for years. It showed how to insulate and protect a cable at sea.
The interest here is the electrical engineering of the cable (insulation, armour); telegraphy itself is outside the scope of this extension.
What it led to
- submarine telegraph cables around the world
- the transatlantic cable (1858, 1866)
- armoured-cable manufacture and laying techniques