The New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Company was a company in a series of conglomerations of several companies that eventually laid the first

Trans-Atlantic cable Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data a ...

. In 1854 British engineer Charles Bright met an American,

Cyrus Field Cyrus West Field (November 30, 1819July 12, 1892) was an American businessman and financier who, along with other entrepreneurs, created the Atlantic Telegraph Company and laid the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1858. Early ...

, who had a dream of completing a submarine cable connection between North America and Europe. The New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company was founded in 1852 and in 1854 Charles Bright and

John Watkins Brett John Watkins Brett (1805–1863) was an English telegraph engineer. Life Brett was the son of a cabinetmaker, William Brett of Bristol, and was born in that city in 1805. Brett is known as the founder of submarine telegraphy. He formed the Sub ...

became additional signatories along with Cyrus Field. This was to make sure that Britain had a representative on the company's board and so enable support for a trans-Atlantic cable from the British. In 1855 Charles Bright finished a survey of the Irish coast and came to the conclusion that

Valentia Island Valentia Island () is one of Ireland's most westerly points. It lies off the Iveragh Peninsula in the southwest of County Kerry. It is linked to the mainland by the Maurice O'Neill Memorial Bridge at Portmagee. A car ferry also departs from ...

, on the south coast of Ireland, was best possible location and was also the closest point to North America. Armed with this location and the information that Cyrus Field gathered from a US Navy oceanographic seabed survey, that had taken place the year before, the project got underway.

External links

'Historical Notes'
Peter Cooper Telegraph companies Defunct companies of Newfoundland and Labrador {{telecom-company-stub