TY - JOUR TI - Technologies of Romance: Valentine from a Telegraph Clerk (m) to a Telegraph Clerk (f): the material culture and standards of early electrical telegraphy AU -Elizabeth Bruton PY - 2019 VL - IS - Autumn 2019 KW - electrical telegraphy KW - James Clerk Maxwell KW - poetry KW - scientific instruments AB - N1 - There are many, slightly varying versions of this poem so I have used the version from the first (1882) edition of Lewis Campbell and William Garnett, The life of James Clerk Maxwell: with a selection from his correspondence and occasional writings and a sketch of his contributions to science (London: Macmillan), pp 630–631. URL: https://archive.org/details/lifeofjamesclerk00camprich/ N1 - See Burns, B, 1857, History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications: The Song of the Atlantic Telegraph Company by James Clerk Maxwell. URL: https://atlantic-cable.com/Article/UnderTheSea/index.htm For further details of James Clerk Maxwell and an appendix of his poetry, see Campbell, L and Garnett, W, 1882, The life of James Clerk Maxwell: with a selection from his correspondence and occasional writings and a sketch of his contributions to science (London: Macmillan) URL: https://archive.org/details/lifeofjamesclerk00camprich/ N1 - Reformatted version of an article by Robert O Woods, Fellow ASME, that originally appeared in Mechanical Engineering, July 2011. It contains additional material from ‘From Gaining Weeks to Milliseconds The Transatlantic Cable’, by John Vardalas, initially published in IEEE-USA’s Today's Engineer, November 2010. URL: https://ethw.org/Transatlantic_Cable N1 - See Blyth, T, 2015, ‘Information age? The challenges of displaying information and communication technologies’ in Science Museum Group Journal, Spring. Article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15180/150303 N1 - Homer, Ron, ‘Edward Davy, 1806–1855; Ottery’s Pioneer of the Electric Telegraph’, an unpublished paper in T/1923-232 Science Museum Technical File for: Daniell cell used by Davy, 1836/9, with spare pot. N1 - For further information about the Elliott Brothers, see https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/elliott-brothers/ N1 - T/1895-14 Science Museum Technical File for: Grove battery, five cells, in tray N1 - T/1895-14 Science Museum Technical File for: Grove battery, five cells, in tray and Mills, Bob. 'Early batteries for telegraph, telephone and other uses', in Australasian Telephone Collectors Society Newsletter (January 1995 and May 1995). URL: http://telephonecollecting.org/articles/batteries.html N1 - T/1895-13 Science Museum Technical File for: Smee Cell and Power, D’Arcy. ‘SMEE, ALFRED (1818–1877)’, Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Volume 52. URL: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Smee,_Alfred_(DNB00) N1 - For further details, see Chapter 2: 'Meanings of Measurement and Accounts of Accuracy', in Gooday, G J N, 2004, The Morals of Measurement: Accuracy, Irony, and Trust in Late Victorian Electrical Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). N1 - As of September 2019, this object is described in the Science Museum’s collections database as a replica but in fact may be a reconstruction, as discussed in correspondence with John Liffen. He also directed me to: Dennison, Mark and Tony Hall-Patch, ‘“Replica” steam locomotives, what purpose do they serve?’, in (ed) Jarvis, Adrian, Replicas as Research Tools, papers presented at a Research Day School Merseyside Maritime Museum 10 February 1996 which explains the difference between a replica, reconstruction, reproduction, and representation. N1 - T/1932-390 Science Museum Technical File for: Working Replica of the Gauss-Weber (1833) electromagnetic telegraph apparatus. (Exhibited at the Faraday Centenary Exhibition, September 1931) N1 - See Giorgi, Giovanni, ‘Rational Units of Electromagnetism’ [unpublished MS with handwritten notes by Oliver Heaviside]. URL: https://www.iec.ch/about/history/documents/documents_giovanni.htm N1 - T/1914-897 Science Museum Technical File for: Glazed frame, containing ‘Delineation of Lines of Magnetic Force by Iron filings’ prepared by Michael Faraday N1 - T/1915-363 Science Museum Technical File for: Hibbert standard one-volt cell and Wikisource contributors, ‘Author: Walter Hibbert’, Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Author:Walter_Hibbert&oldid=7310085 (accessed 1 September 2019) PB - The Science Museum Group SN - 2054-5770 LA - eng DO - 10.15180/191201 UR - https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/valentine-from-a-telegraph-clerk/ T2 - Science Museum Group Journal