PERTH, WA. — Australia’s first telegraph line, which ran from Melbourne to Williamstown, opened in 1854. Each of the other states followed suit within seven years, but Western Australia’s relative isolation delayed the development of the technology.
Edmund Stirling was the proprietor of the Perth newspaper, and the one who stirred the colonial authorities into action. He offered to build a telegraph line extending from Perth to Fremantle if the government was prepared to supply and erect the poles.
Stirling joined with ex-convict James Fleming who had been transported for swindling in 1864, and who was subsequently appointed Superintendent of Telegraphs on a conditional release.
The first telegraph pole was installed near the Perth jetty by Colonial Secretary, the Honorable Fred Barlee, in 1869, and a 12-mile wire extended to Fremantle. The first telegram was sent on 21 June 1869. The text of the first telegram read:
“To the chairman of the Fremantle Town Trust. His Excellency Colonel Bruce heartily congratulates the inhabitants of Fremantle on the annihilation of distance between the Port and the Capital and he requests that this the first message may be publicly known.
Government House 21st June 1869.”
