Todd, Charles (1826 - 1910)

Summary

Charles Todd was an astronomer, meteorologist, and electrical engineer who, as South Australia's Superintendent of Telegraphs and Postmaster-General, made significant contributions to the development of South Australia. He worked for 14 years at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and the University of Cambridge observatory, as computer and gaining experience the use of telegraphy. He became fascinated by telecommunications. On being selected as observer and superintendent of electric telegraph for the South Australian government, Todd arrived in Adelaide in November 1855. One of his first projects, proposed in conjunction with his Victorian counterpart William McGowan, was the first national telecommunications system connecting South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, and ultimately internationally. He also proposed a network of meteorological observing stations for which telegraph connections were vital. Todd's largest undertaking was the building of an overland telegraph between Adelaide and Darwin, the work accomplished by 1872 despite inadequate survey and labour problems. In parallel with his telegraph work, Todd continued his meteorological and astronomical work. By the time he retired 510 rainfall stations had been established in South Australia and the Northern Territory. Todd was actively involved in the local scientific societies, serving as President of the Royal Society of South Australia and the Astronomical Society of South Australia.

Details

Todd became Superintendent of Telegraphs and Government Astronomer and Meteorologist in South Australia in 1855 at the age of 30. By 1858 he had completed telegraph links to Victoria and New South Wales and, by 1872, the overland telegraph to Darwin. As Superintendent of Telegraphs, he made it a duty of all his telegraph operators to make and transmit meteorological observations and he had soon established extensive observing networks throughout South Australia and the Northern Territory, and into Western Australia. Elected a Fellow, Royal Society of London in 1869, he played a leading role in the scientific life of South Australia, even after his formal retirement, until his death in 1909. A Hundred Years of Science and Service, Bureau of Meteorology, 2001.

From 'The Overland Telegraph Line: A transcultural history':
"Superintendent of Telegraphs Charles Todd shared the dominant Victorian view of relentless British expansion, inevitably expanding and sweeping across indigenous landscapes, and there is no doubt that he gave little thought to the effects on Aboriginal people of his technological installation penetrating and crossing their countries. It is worth noting then, that Todd thought it important to gather a vocabulary of Arabana words at the Peake telegraph station." [See reference below]

Chronology

1841 - 1847

Career position - Astronomical Computer, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, United Kingdom

1847 - 1854

Career position - Assistant Astronomer, Cambridge Observatory, United Kingdom

1854 - 1855

Career position - Superintendent of galvanic apparatus, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, United Kingdom

1855 - 1870

Career Position - Astronomical Observer and Superintendent of Telegraphs, South Australia

1856 - 1880

Career event - Member, Adelaide Philosophical Society

1869

Award - Fellow, The Royal Society, London (FRS)

1870 - 1905

Career Position - Postmaster General, South Australian Post and Telegraph Department

1872

Award - Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG)

1873 - 1910

Career position - Member, Society of Telegraph Engineers, United Kingdom

1881 - 1882

Career Position - President, Royal Society of South Australia

1885

Career event - Delegate, International Telegraphic Conference, Berlin

1886

Award - Master of Arts (MA), honoris causa, University of Cambridge

1888

Career event - Original [founding] member, Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science

1892 - 1910

Career Position - President, Astronomical Society of South Australia

1893

Award - Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George

1895 - 1910

Award - Fellow, Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom

1895 - 1910

Award - Fellow, Royal Meteorological Society, United Kingdom

1905

Life event - Retired

Related entries

Archival resources

Geological Survey of South Australia

• Charles Todd - Records, 1893 - 1899; Geological Survey of South Australia. Details

Public Record Office Victoria, Victorian Archives Centre

• Melbourne Observatory - Records, 1857 - 1880, VPRS 776; Public Record Office Victoria, Victorian Archives Centre. Details
• Melbourne Observatory - Records, 1859 - 1863, VPRS 779; Public Record Office Victoria, Victorian Archives Centre. Details
• Melbourne Observatory - Records, 1852 - 1943, VPRS 780; Public Record Office Victoria, Victorian Archives Centre. Details
• Melbourne Observatory - Records, 1859 - 1862, VPRS 869; Public Record Office Victoria, Victorian Archives Centre. Details
• Melbourne Observatory - Records, 1859 - 1919, VPRS 775; Public Record Office Victoria, Victorian Archives Centre. Details

State Library of South Australia, Mortlock Library of South Australiana

• Charles Todd - Records, 1855 - 1881, PRG 630; State Library of South Australia, Mortlock Library of South Australiana. Details
• Royal Society of South Australia - Records, 1853 - 1969, SRG 10; State Library of South Australia, Mortlock Library of South Australiana. Details

State Records of South Australia

• Charles Todd - Records, 1852 - 1901; State Records of South Australia. Details

Published resources

Books

• Ashenden, Dean, Telling Tennant's story: the strange career of the great Australian silence (Collingwood, Vic.: Black Inc., 2022), 338 pp. Details
• Clune, F., Overland telegraph: the story of a great Australian achievement and the link between Adelaide and Port Darwin (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1955), 238 pp. Details
• Courtenay, Adam, Mr Todd's marvel: how one man telegraphed Australia to the modern world (Warriewood, N.S.W.: Woodslane Press, 2023), 197 pp. Details
• Cryle, Denis, Behind the legend: the many worlds of Charles Todd (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2017), 312 pp. Details
• Cumming, D. A.; Moxham, G. C., They built South Australia : engineers, technicians, manufacturers, contractors and their work (Adelaide: D.A. Cumming and G.C Moxham, 1986), 241 pp. pp.185-7. Details
• Dufty, David, Charles Todd's magnificant obsession: the epic race to connect Australia to the world (Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2024), 354 pp. Details
• Gibbs, W. J., The Origins of Australian Meteorology, Metarch Papers No. 12 (Bureau of Meteorology, 1998). Details
• Rogers, Tony and Ferrante, Judy, The weatherman from Greenwich: Charles Todd 1826 to 1910 (Adelaide: Australian Meteorological Association, 2017), 163 pp. Details
• Taylor, Peter, An End to Silence: the building of the Overland Telegraph Line from Adelaide to Darwin (Sydney: Methuen Australia, 1980). Details

Book Sections

• Symes, G. W., 'Todd, Sir Charles (1826-1910), astronomer, meteorologist and electrical engineer' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 6: 1851 - 1890 R - Z, Bede Nairn, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1976), pp. 280-282. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A060301b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

• Abell, Lesley; and Kinns, Roger, '"Telegraph" Todd and the Semaphore time ball', Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, 38 (2010), 42-57. Details
• Cameron, A. R., 'The story of the Overland Telegraph Line - Part 2', Telecommunication Journal of Australia, 5 (5) (1945), 283-9, http://www.coxhill.com/trlhistory/media/Telecommmunication%20Journal%20of%20Australia/The%20Telecommunication%20Journal%20of%20Australia%20Vol%205,%20No%205%20OCTOBER%201945.pdf. Details
• Cameron, A. R., 'The story of the Overland Telegraph Line - Part 1', Telecommunication Journal of Australia, 5 (4) (1945), 189-98, http://www.coxhill.com/trlhistory/media/Telecommmunication%20Journal%20of%20Australia/The%20Telecommunication%20Journal%20of%20Australia%20Vol%205,%20No%204%20JUNE%201945.pdf. Details
• Cryle, Denis, 'From Outback Icon to Imperial Time Lord: "Reinventing" Sir Charles Todd (1910-2010)', Journal of Australian Studies, 35 (2011), 65-82. Details
• Cryle, Denis, '"And now the biography": 150 years of "Telegraph" Todd', Australian journal of telecommunications and the digital economy, 6 (1) (2018), 84-106, https://doi.org/10.18080/ajtde.v6n1.143. Details
• Edwards, P. G., 'Charles Todd and the Adelaide Observatory', Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of Australia, 10 (1993), 349-54. Details
• Edwards, P. G., 'Charles Todd's observations of the transit of Venus', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 7 (2004), 1-7. Details
• Jones, Philip, 'Aboriginal interactions with the Overland Telegraph Line, 1870 - 1880', Journal of telecommunications and the digital economy, 11 (1) (2023), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.18080/jtde.v11n1.714. Details
• Lamberton, D., 'The subversive and the manager: organizing knowledge in a hard place - the Charles Todd Oration', Telecommunication Journal of Australia, 51 (1) (2001), 65-72. Details
• Livingston, Kevin T., 'Charles Todd: powerful communication technocrat in colonial and federating Australia', Australian Journal of Communication, 24 (3) (1997), 1-10, https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/ielapa.980807722. Details
• McCarthy, Gavan, 'The Overland Telegraph and Undersea Cable: Australia's First Electronic Information Network', Australasian Science, 22 (10) (2001), 46. Details
• Richards, J. B., 'The Overland Telegraph Line - Its early history', South Australian Institute of Engineers: Biennial proceedings 1913 - 1915 (1915), 94 - 115, https://images.slsa.sa.gov.au/zper/i14966505/zperi14966505_1913-1915.pdf. Details
• Symes, G. W.; and Ward, B. J., 'Charles Todd and the Overland Telegraph', Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch, 81 (71) (1980), 59-73. Details
• Todd, C., 'A Review of Meteorological Work in Australia', Report of the fifth meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 5 (1894), 246-270, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/15362434. Details
• Venus, Richard, 'Charles Todd, the Government Electrician', Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, 48 (2020), [1-16]. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1066258. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/73350505. Details
• 'Todd, Charles (1826-1910)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-478767. Details
• Nettelbeck, Amanda (and others), The Overland Telegraph Line: A Transcultural History, [web resource; undated], South Australian Government, South Australia, 2023. https://otlhistory.sa.gov.au/. Details

Resource Sections

• 'Todd, Charles', in Physics in Australia to 1945, R.W. Home, with the assistance of Paula J. Needham, Australian Science Archives Project, June 1995, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/physics/P000836p.htm. Details
• 'Charles Todd - supervised construction of Overland Telegraph Line', in The 1997 Australian Science Festival, 1997, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/other/asf_scientists.htm#charles. Details
• Gibbs, W. J., 'The Origins of Australian Meteorology', in Federation and Meteorology, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/0805.html. Details

Reviews

• Rogers, Tony and Ferrante, Judy, The weatherman from Greenwich: Charles Todd 1826 to 1910 (2017)
  Campbell, Leith H., 'The weatherman from Greenwich: a new book "about" Charles Todd', Australian journal of telecommunications and the digital economy, 6 (1), (2018), 115-7. Details
• Courtenay, Adam, Mr Todd's marvel: how one man telegraphed Australia to the modern world (2023)
  Holmes, Jim, 'Charles Todd and the overland telegraph', Journal of telecommunications and the digital economy, 12 (1), (2024), 94-9. Details

Theses

• Stevenson, T., 'Measuring the stars and observing the less visible: Australia's participation in the Astrographic Catalogue and Carte du Ciel', Thesis, University of Sydney, 2015, 381 pp. Details

See also

• Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Technology in Australia 1788-1988, Online edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, 3 May 2000, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/index_t.html. Details
• Federation and Meteorology, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/index_t.html. Details
• Science and the making of Victoria, with Royal Society of Victoria, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/smv/index_t.html. Details
• Engineers Australia ed., Wonders never cease: 100 Australian engineering achievements (Barton, Australian Capital Territory: Institution of Engineers, Australia, 2019), 236 pp. pp.24,66,118-119. Details
• Engineers Australia ed., Anything is possible: 100 Australian engineering leaders (Barton, A.C.T.: Institution of Engineers Australia, 2019), 136 pp. 'Crossing the Land - Sir Charles Todd' p.11. Details
• Leybourne-Ward, N., 'Australia's Overland Telegraph Line 1870-1872', in First Australasian Conference on Engineering Heritage 1994: Old Ways in a New Land; Preprints of Papers (Barton, Australian Capital Territory: Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1994), pp. 103-113., https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.625694582063521. Details
• Putnis, P., 'The early years of international telegraphy in Australia: a critical assessment', Media international Australia, 129 (2008), 140-8. Details
• Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details
• Todd, R. M., 'A century of telecommunications in the Northern Territory, part 1: the Overland Telegraph', Telecommunication Journal of Australia, 22 (3) (1972), 174-82, http://www.coxhill.com/trlhistory/media/Telecommmunication%20Journal%20of%20Australia/The%20Telecommunication%20Journal%20of%20Australia%20Vol%2022%20No%203%20OCTOBER%201972.pdf. Details
• Woodrow, B. E., 'A century of telecommunications in the Northern Territory, part 2: the subsequent development of the route', Telecommunication Journal of Australia, 22 (3) (1972), 167-73, http://www.coxhill.com/trlhistory/media/Telecommmunication%20Journal%20of%20Australia/The%20Telecommunication%20Journal%20of%20Australia%20Vol%2022%20No%203%20OCTOBER%201972.pdf. Details