The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a company formed in 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic ocean, the first such telecommunications link. A company in the broadest sense is an aggregation of people who stay together for a common purpose. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Telegraphy (from the Greek words tele = far away and grapho = write) is the long distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters, originally over wire. ... Telecommunication is the extension of communication over a distance. ...

The project stemmed from an agreement between Cyrus Field, John Watkins Brett and Charles Tilston Bright and was incorporated in December 1856 with £350,000 capital, raised principally in London, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow. The board of directors was composed of eighteen members from the UK, nine from the U.S. and three from Canada. The original three projectors were joined by E.O.W. Whitehouse as chief electrician. Curtis M. Lampson served ably as vice-chairman for over a decade. Cyrus West Field (November 30, 1819–July 11/12, 1892) was an American businessman and financier who led a company that successfully laid the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1858. ... Incorporation is: In business, incorporation is the creation of a corporation. ... GBP may be: short for Game Boy Player the ISO currency code for the British Pound Sterling. ... Capital has a number of related meanings in economics, finance and accounting. ... St. ... Liverpools skyline, as seen from the River Mersey. ... Manchester is a city in the north-west of England. ... Glasgows location in Scotland Glasgow (or Glaschu in Gaelic) is Scotlands largest city, on the River Clyde in west central Scotland. ... A board of directors is a group of individuals chosen by the stockholders of a company to promote their interests through the governance of the company. ... For other uses, see United States (disambiguation) and US (disambiguation). ... An electrician is a tradesman specializing in electrical wiring of buildings and related equipment. ...

The board recruited mathematician William Thomson, later to become Lord Kelvin, who had publicly disputed some of Whitehouse's claims. The two enjoyed a tense relationship before Whitehouse was dismissed when the first cable failed. A mathematician is a person whose area of study and research is mathematics. ... There have been a number of people named William Thomson: William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, usually known as Lord Kelvin, was a 19th century British physicist. ... William Thomson, Archbishop of York, has the same name as this man. ...

When a second cable, under Thomson's supervision, was proposed, a new subsiduary company, the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, was formed to execute the new venture.

On the failure of the expedition to lay the second cable, a third company was formed to raise the capital for a further attempt, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. The next expedition was a success, also succeding in recovering the lost second cable. The service generated revenues of £1000 in its first day of operation.

Bibliography

• Sharlin, H.I (1979). Lord Kelvin: The Dynamic Victorian. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0271002034., pp127-147
• Standage, T. (1998). The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Cenury's Online Pioneers. Phoenix. ISBN 0753807033.