Sending Dots and Dashes

This machine is a Siemens Telegraph Register. It dates from around the 1850s, no later than 1860. The reason for this date is that this machine records the message onto a paper tape, storing a permanent record of the Morse code message. This was the earliest version of how the messages were received before Alfred […]

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Modelling the Martha

With her two masts fully rigged, the Martha, a small colonial-built schooner, tacked out of Port Jackson (Sydney), her sails catching the fresh breezes which would carry her northwards. It was July 1800, and the ship’s master William Reid, formerly Quartermaster of the First Fleet ship HMS Sirius, had been instructed to collect coal at […]

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