How ‘Todd the time lord’ linked Australia to the world

It seemed like science fiction at the time, but in the late 1800s one scientist and his team ventured deep into the Outback to connect Australia to the world.

Charles Todd (second from right) and other men working on the Overland Telegraph Line.

It seemed like science fiction at the time, but in the late 1800s one scientist and his team ventured deep into the Outback to connect Australia to the world.

Author Adam Courtenay joins the In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters to share the tale of a man he calls “Todd the time lord”:

Charles Todd was a scientist and astronomer whose finest achievement was synchronising Australia with the world.

From 1870-72, Todd built the Overland Telegraph Line from Adelaide to Darwin, with 36,000 telegraph poles.

Once it was connected, information that once took seven weeks to reach Australia only took seven hours, in a boon for businesses, governments and ordinary people.

The extraordinary accomplishment is detailed in Courtenay’s new book, Mr Todd’s Marvel: How One Man Telegraphed Australia to the Modern World.

Born in London, Todd was what was known as a “computer”, or a mathematical genius.

Courtenay says Todd’s first role as a “time lord” was at the Greenwich observatory, where his role was to ensure British ships and railways received the correct time.

“It was his job to make sure that England was always on time, because Greenwich was the temporal centre of the empire,” Courtenay says.

In the 1850s, Todd was sent with his young wife, Alice, to South Australia to be the head of telegraphs.

Charles Todd with his wife, Alice.

Charles Todd, the pioneer of the Overland Telegraph Line. Picture: National Library of Australia

The Todds learned better than anyone how isolated Australia was from the rest of the world.

“He allegedly strung some pearls around Alice’s neck and said, ‘I’m going to make the world connect just like Alice’s pearls,’” Courtenay says.

“He had visions of creating a worldwide telegraph probably 15 years before it was actually able to happen.”

Once technology caught up with Todd’s bold vision, the telegraph line had to be built mostly through inhospitable territory that only one man, explorer John McDouall Stuart, had seen in its entirety.

Mr Todd's Marvel: How One Man Telegraphed Australia to the Modern World, by Adam Courtenay.

Author Adam Courtenay

Even lesser known were the 35 Aboriginal groups whose territory the line would cross.

The Indigenous people were mostly bemused by the strange white men erecting poles across the land, but there was serious conflict at times.

When two telegraph station men were killed two years after the project was completed, dozens of Aboriginal men, women and children were killed in a horrific reprisal attack.

Courtenay says when Todd finished the project in 1872, Australia was finally running in time with the rest of the globe.

“It’s a monumental achievement that’s kind of been forgotten, I think,” he says.

“And I think he was truly one of the great scientists of his age.”

To find out what happened, listen to the interview in the free In Black and White podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper every Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.