Reading one of the few obituaries to Wildman Whitehouse who died in 1891 I came across the following:
" Mr J C Laws, Mr Frank Lambert, Mr Joseph May and Mr H A C Saunders (of whom only the latter survives), assisted him in his electrical work from early 1854 until his connection with telegraphy ceased.........etc"
Saunders pictured here was apparently Electrician in Chief to the Eastern Telegraph Company ( dates unknown....perhaps 1870's ?).
I have been unable to track down anything about Saunders in the archive so far and would be very interested to hear from anyone who has and particularly to know if there may be any references there to his work with Whitehouse.
Saunders and Laws
ReplyDeleteDear Allan,
Henry Albert Charles Saunders was definitely electrician-in-chief at the Eastern Telegraph Company from 1875 to 1905. I've found loads of stuff about him, and an obituary in the Zodiac (which mentions EOWW) and a report in the Electrician of a retirement dinner for him are particularly useful. There are also letters from him in the Oliver Lodge/J. Wolfe Barry correspondence (PK) and Kelvin papers (Cambridge), but nothing here on EOWW I'm afraid.
The J. C. Laws you mentioned was a consulting engineer for the Anglo-American Telegraph Company and there are a couple of references to him in Charles Bright's Submarine Telegraphs (1898).
Dear Richard,
ReplyDeleteJust spotted your Comment.
Many thanks for that..........I will pick up on your leads next time I get to PK.
More on Saunders on my site, including a transcript of the report in the Electrician
ReplyDeleteBill Burns
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDear Allan,
ReplyDeleteI am the great grandson of Henry Saunders, I am in possession of the Cleopatra's Needle that Mr. H.A.C. Saunders, electrician-in-chief of the Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies was awarded at his retirement ceremony at the Trocadero Restaurant, Piccadilly, by Mr A. Siemens. I'm not sure where the silver tea set and silver tray went, but will be left the original picture taken of/at the event including the hand drawn invitation to his retirement ceremony. This still resides in my father’s collection. Mr Charles James Buchanan.
Kind regards
Mike Buchanan
caveandkarst@hotmail.com
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ReplyDelete