Resource

Creator

Nettelbeck, Amanda (and others)

Title

The Overland Telegraph Line: A Transcultural History

Description of Work

[web resource; undated]

Imprint

South Australian Government, South Australia, 2023

Url

https://otlhistory.sa.gov.au/

Description

From the Introduction: "When the Overland Telegraph Line was completed on 22 August 1872, it activated a communication wire across the Australian continent, from Adelaide to Port Darwin, that connected the Australian colonies to each other, to the rest of the British Empire and to the world. Understandably, it is often described as the greatest feat of engineering in colonial Australia. Overseen by Superintendent of Telegraphs Charles Todd, the Overland Telegraph Line was built in three sections - southern, central and northern - between 1870 and 1872."

"It did not create the first line of communication through the continent's interior: Aboriginal pathways of communication, trade and exchange had criss-crossed the continent for millennia. But it did facilitate a European overland route of access across the country that became a catalyst for further colonisation, cross-cultural encounter and the formation of new kinds of relationships."

Abstract

The web resource is presented in sections:

Credits:
'The Overland Telegraph Line: A Transcultural History' is a collaborative initiative between the Australian Catholic University, the History Trust of South Australia, the South Australian Museum, and the State Library of South Australia. It was compiled by the following researchers from those institutions:
Australian Catholic University: Amanda Nettelbeck (Professor of History)
History Trust SA: Jacinta Koolmatrie (Curator, First Nations History), Mandy Paul (Head of Collections), Tess Potiki (Digital Content Producer)
State Library SA: Clare Parker (Archivist); Jeremy Sibbald (Indigenous Collections Coordinator)
South Australian Museum: Philip Jones (Senior Researcher), Jared Thomas (Research Fellow, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Material Culture and Art), South Australian Museum Archives

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Black, Christine. The Land is the Source of the Law: A Dialogic Encounter with Indigenous Jurisprudence (Routledge-Cavendish, 2011).
Curr, Edward. The Australian Race, 4 vols (Melbourne: John Farnes Govt Printer, 1886-1887)
Davis, Megan, and George Williams Everything You Need to Know about the Uluru Statement from the Heart (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2021)
Foster, Robert. 'Rations, coexistence, and the colonisation of Aboriginal labour in the South Australian pastoral industry, 1860-1911', Aboriginal History vol 24 (2000), 1-26.
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Jones, Philip and Anna Kenny. Australia's Muslim Cameleers: Pioneers of the Inland (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2010).
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McGrath, Ann. Born in the Cattle: Aborigines in Cattle Country (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1987).
Mulvaney, John. Encounters in Place: Outsiders and Aboriginal Australians (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1989).
Smith, Thomas Frederick. Diary. The Overland Telegraph Construction Party, 13 August- 18 December 1871. State Library of South Australia PRG 198/2.
Nettelbeck, Amanda and Robert Foster. In the Name of the Law: William Willshire and the Policing of the Australian Frontier (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2007).
Northern Territory Government, 'Indigenous History of Darwin', https://www.darwin.nt.gov.au/community/about-darwin/history
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Turnbull, Paul. 'A Judicious Collector: Edward Charles Stirling and the Procurement of Aboriginal Bodily Remains in South Australia c 1880-1912' in Sarah Ferber and Sally Wilde, eds., The Body Divided: Human Beings and Human 'Material' In Modern Medical History (Farnham UK: Ashgate, 2011).
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Related entries

People

• Todd, Charles (1826 - 1910)

See also

• Elder, Thomas (1818 - 1897)
• Foelsche, Paul Heinrich Matthis (1831 - 1914)
• Forrest, John (1847 - 1918)
• Gillen, Francis James (1855 - 1912)
• Gosse, William Christie (1842 - 1881)
• Horn Scientific Exploring Expedition (1894)
• Mulvaney, Derek John (John) (1925 - 2016)
• Ross, John (1817 - 1903)
• South Australian Institute (1856 - 1940)
• South Australian Museum (1940 - )
• Spencer, Walter Baldwin (1860 - 1929)
• Stirling, Edward Charles (Ted) (1848 - 1919)
• Stuart, John McDouall (1815 - 1866)
• Warburton, Peter Egerton (1813 - 1889)

Related Published resources

hasReview

• Dean, Katrina, 'The overland telegraph line: a transcultural history', History Australia, 20 (1) (2023), 173-5, https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2022.2162344. Details
• Wells, Samantha, 'Exhibition review: The overland telegraph line: a transcultural history', Australian Historical Studies, 54 (2) (2023), 359-63, https://doi.org/10.1080/1031461X.2022.2153422. Details

References

• Ashenden, Dean, Telling Tennant's story: the strange career of the great Australian silence (Collingwood, Vic.: Black Inc., 2022), 338 pp. Details
• Curr, Edward M., The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia, and the routes by which it spread itself over that continent, 4 vols (Melbourne: London: Government Printer: Trubner, 1886-7). Details
• Davis, Megan; and Williams, George, Everything you need to know about the Uluru Statement from the Heart (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2021), 234 pp. Details
• Mulvaney, D. J., Encounters in Place: Outsiders and Aboriginal Australians 1606 - 1985 (St Licia, Qldd: University of Queensland Press, 1989), 263 pp. Details
• Turnbull, P., 'A judicious collector: Edward Charles Stirling and the procurement of Aboriginal boodily remains in South Australia, c. 1880 - 1912' in The body divided: human beings and human "material" in modern medical history, Ferber, S.; and Wilde, S., eds (Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate, 2011), p. 22. Details