Wave to whisper : British military communications in Halifax and the Empire, 1780-1880 / James H. Morrison. : R64-81/1982-64E-PDF

"Within the British Empire, Halifax played a prominent part in the development of the visual telegraph system in North America; a telegraph system was initiated by the Duke of Kent in the 1790s during his stay in Halifax. With the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, military interest in communication systems declined. The electric telegraph, however, sparked renewed interest as Britain proceeded from the industrial to the electric age. The military, although hesitant in utilizing the various telegraph systems, eventually found them valuable. They were particularly useful in the coastal defence fortifications of the empire. In Halifax, an intricate military visual telegraph was in place to maintain constant communication with the outforts and the harbour mouth. Thus as the electric telegraph became widely accepted the army had one installed in the Halifax defence system by 1869. As a result the Citadel flags became merely a tradition and, almost a century after the visual telegraph had been introduced by the Duke of Kent, they were discarded. Yet, the Citadel remained the communication centre it had always been. By 1900 instead of a visual telegraph system, the Halifax Citadel controlled a web of telegraph and telephone wires to the outforts"--Abstract, p. 5.

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