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THIS OBJECT IS PART OF THE PROJECT 'A HISTORY OF CORNWALL IN 100 OBJECTS'.

PORTHCURNO TELEGRAPH MUSEUM. Porthcurno was once the 'Nerve Centre of the Empire', the telegraph cable station that connected Britain to the rest of the world through 150,000 miles of submarine telegraph cables.

Porthcurno was also the main training school of the Eastern Telegraph Company and trained young men and sent them round the world as telegraph operators.

This diary belonged to George Spratt, the Assistant Superintendent of the station with responsibilities for training the 'probationers'. He kept diaries for thirty years from 1870 and they shed a uniquely fascinating light on local and global events

For example on 22nd January 1879 he lectured in the morning on E. Magnetism, dealt with the committal of a[n employee's] lunatic child (?), and noted 'a ship gone into port having developed several faults in Cable.'