The right signals This former semaphore station was built to guard against Napoleonic invasion, reports Ross Clark

From: The Sunday Telegraph London | Date: January 26, 2003| Author: | Copyright information

In two centuries' time, people will stare up at the remains of the few surviving mobile phone masts and wonder what those strange steel towers were for. After all, how many people today are aware of the semaphore stations that were strung out across the English landscape during the Napoleonic Wars?

In 1795, with the threat of an invasion by the French imminent, the Admiralty had the idea of creating a simple semaphore system for rapid communication between London and the naval ports. In 1820 it was upgraded to a permanent system by the splendidly named Captain Sir Home Riggs Popham.

Chains of ...

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