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Charles Todd (pioneer)
Sir Charles Todd (7 July 1826 – 29 January 1910) worked at the Royal Greenwich Observatory 1841–1847 and the Cambridge University observatory from 1847 to 1854. He then worked on telegraphy and undersea cables until engaged by the government of South Australia as astronomical and meteorological observer, and head of the electric telegraph department. Early life and career Todd was the son of grocer Griffith ToddH. P. Hollis, 'Todd, Sir Charles (1826–1910)', rev. K. T. Livingston, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 and Mary Parker; he was born at Islington, London, the second of five children. Shortly after Charles's birth the family moved to Greenwich, where his father set up as a wine and tea merchant. Charles was educated and spent most of his life in Greenwich before moving to Australia. In December 1841, he entered the service of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, under Sir George Biddell Airy. He was fortunate that his school lea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Islington
Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields and Regent's Canal, encompassing the area around the busy High Street, Upper Street, Essex Road, and Southgate Road to the east. History Etymology The manor of Islington was named by the Saxons ''Giseldone'' (1005), then ''Gislandune'' (1062). The name means "GÄ«sla's hill" from the Old English personal name ''GÄ«sla'' and ''dun (fortification), dun'' ("hill", "Downland, down"). The name later mutated to ''Isledon'', which remained in use well into the 17th century when the modern form arose. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geomagnetically Induced Current
Geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) are electrical currents induced at the Earth's surface by rapid changes in the geomagnetic field caused by space weather events. GICs can affect the normal operation of long electrical conductor systems such as Electric power transmission, electric transmission grids and buried Pipeline transport, pipelines. The geomagnetic disturbances which induce GICs include geomagnetic storms and substorms where the most severe disturbances occur at high geomagnetic latitudes. Background The Earth's magnetic field varies over a wide range of timescales. The longer-term variations, typically occurring over decades to millennia, are predominantly the result of dynamo action in the Earth's core. Geomagnetic variations on timescales of seconds to years also occur, due to dynamic processes in the ionosphere, magnetosphere and heliosphere. These changes are ultimately tied to variations associated with the solar cycle, solar activity (or sunspot) cycle and are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Australian Register
''The Register'', originally the ''South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register'', and later ''South Australian Register,'' was South Australia's first newspaper. It was first published in London in June 1836, moved to Adelaide in 1837, and folded into '' The Advertiser'' almost a century later in February 1931. The newspaper was the sole primary source for almost all information about the settlement and early history of South Australia. It documented shipping schedules, legal history and court records at a time when official records were not kept. According to the National Library of Australia, its pages contain "one hundred years of births, deaths, marriages, crime, building history, the establishment of towns and businesses, political and social comment". All issues are freely available online, via Trove. History ''The Register'' was conceived by Robert Thomas, a law stationer, who had purchased for his family of land in the proposed South Australian province after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Macgeorge
James Macgeorge (1832 – 9 December 1918) was a Scottish-born architect in South Australia. He is remembered for erecting South Australia's first telegraph line. History James Macgeorge was born in Scotland, the fifth son of tailor Robert Forsyth Macgeorge (1795–1860) and his wife Elizabeth M. Macgeorge, née Duncan (1801–), who with their family emigrated to South Australia aboard the ''Ariadne'', arriving on 13 August 1839. They developed the property they named "Urr brae", now the suburb known as Urrbrae. James was educated at the Church of England Collegiate School (predecessor of St Peter's College), where he was an outstanding pupil. He started practising as an architect in 1855 and in that year responded to a notice in the ''Gazette'' of 25 January advertising a contest to design a water reticulation scheme for Adelaide, then petitioned for an enquiry when no prize was awarded. The same year he set about running a telegraph line between the city and Port Adelaide. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adelaide City Centre
Adelaide city centre () is the inner city locality of Adelaide, Greater Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is known by locals simply as "the City" or "Town" to distinguish it from Greater Adelaide and from the City of Adelaide local government area (which also includes North Adelaide and from the Adelaide Park Lands, Park Lands around the whole city centre). The residential population was 18,202 in the , with a local worker population of 130,404. Adelaide city centre was planned in 1837 on a Greenfield land, greenfield site following a Grid plan, grid layout, with streets running at right angles to each other. It covers an area of and is surrounded by of park lands.The area of the park lands quoted is based, in the absence of an official boundary between the City and North Adelaide, on an east–west line past the front entrance of Adelaide Oval. Within the city are five parks: Victoria Square, Adelaide, Victoria Square in the exact centre and four other, smal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New South Wales
New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South Australia to the west. Its coast borders the Coral Sea, Coral and Tasman Seas to the east. The Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory are Enclave and exclave, enclaves within the state. New South Wales' state capital is Sydney, which is also Australia's most populous city. , the population of New South Wales was over 8.3 million, making it Australia's most populous state. Almost two-thirds of the state's population, 5.3 million, live in the Greater Sydney area. The Colony of New South Wales was founded as a British penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised more than half of the Australian mainland with its Western Australia border, western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825. The colony then also includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Cracknell
Edward Charles Cracknell (1831 – 14 January 1893) was an electrical engineer, Superintendent of Electric Telegraphs, New South Wales, and Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the Submarine Miners of the New South Wales Militia. He is considered Australia's third telegraph pioneer, after S. W. McGowan of Victoria and Charles Todd in South Australia. History Cracknell was born in Rochester, Kent, England, and educated at Oxford. In November 1855 he left for Adelaide in company with (later Sir) Charles Todd, head of the South Australian Post and Telegraph Department, having been selected by Todd as his assistant and future successor. They both came out to South Australia aboard the ''Irene'', and promptly set about installing the line from Adelaide to Port Adelaide and The Semaphore, replacing a less permanent privately operated line financed and constructed by James MacGeorge. Around the end of 1857, he was appointed assistant to Ben Hay Martindale ("Captain Martindale"), Superintendent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adelaide
Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre; the demonym ''Adelaidean'' is used to denote the city and the residents of Adelaide. The Native title in Australia#Traditional owner, traditional owners of the Adelaide region are the Kaurna, with the name referring to the area of the city centre and surrounding Adelaide Park Lands, Park Lands, in the Kaurna language. Adelaide is situated on the Adelaide Plains north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, between the Gulf St Vincent in the west and the Mount Lofty Ranges in the east. Its metropolitan area extends from the coast to the Adelaide Hills, foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges, and stretches from Gawler in the north to Sellicks Beach in the south. Named in ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alice Springs
Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Mills (surveyor), William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (), wife of the telegraph pioneer Sir Charles Todd (pioneer), Charles Todd. Known colloquially as The Alice or simply Alice, the town is situated roughly in Australia's Geographical centre, geographic centre. It is nearly equidistant from Adelaide and Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin. The area is also known locally as to its Indigenous Australians, original inhabitants, the Arrernte people, Arrernte, who have lived in the Central Australian desert in and around what is now Alice Springs for tens of thousands of years. Alice Springs had a population of 33,990 as of June 2024. The town's population accounts for approximately 10 percent of the population of the Northern Terr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Ball
A time ball or timeball is a time-signalling device. It consists of a large, painted wooden or metal ball that is dropped at a predetermined time, principally to enable navigators aboard ships offshore to verify the setting of their marine chronometers. Accurate timekeeping is essential to the determination of longitude at sea. Although time balls have since been replaced by electronic time signals, some time balls have remained operational as historical tourist attractions. History The fall of a ball was in antiquity a way to show to people the time. Ancient Greek clocks had this system in the main square of a city, as in the city of Gaza in the post-Alexander era, and as described by Procopius in his book on Edifices. Time ball stations set their clocks according to transit observations of the positions of the sun and stars. Originally they either had to be stationed at the observatory, or had to keep a very accurate clock at the station which was set manually to observatory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Eastern Railway, UK
The South Eastern Railway (SER) was a railway company in south-eastern England from 1836 until 1922. The company was formed to construct a route from London to Dover. Branch lines were later opened to Tunbridge Wells, Hastings, Canterbury and other places in Kent. The absorbed or leased other railways, some older than itself, including the London and Greenwich Railway and the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway. Most of the company's routes were in Kent, eastern Sussex and the London suburbs, with a long cross-country route from in Surrey to Reading, Berkshire. Much of the company's early history saw attempts at expansion and feuding with its neighbours; the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) in the west and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) to the north-east. However, in 1899 the agreed with the to share operation of the two railways, work them as a single system (marketed as the South Eastern and Chatham Railway) and pool receipts: but it was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electric Telegraph
Electrical telegraphy is Point-to-point (telecommunications), point-to-point distance communicating via sending electric signals over wire, a system primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems called ''telegraphs'', that were devised to send text messages more quickly than physically carrying them. Electrical telegraphy can be considered the first example of electrical engineering. Electrical telegraphy consisted of two or more geographically separated stations, called telegraph offices. The offices were connected by wires, usually supported overhead on utility poles. Many electrical telegraph systems were invented that operated in different ways, but the ones that became widespread fit into two broad categories. First are the needle telegraphs, in which electric current sent down the telegraph line produces electromagnetic force to move a needle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
