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Book Cover
Book
Author Thomson, Alice, 1967-

Title The singing line / Alice Thomson
Published London : Chatto & Windus, 1999

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  994.29 Tho/Sli  AVAILABLE
Description 292 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 22 cm
Contents Includes index
Summary "In 1855 an impoverished young scientist from Greenwich told his guardian that he was off to chance his luck in Australia - as Government Astronomer and Superintendent of Telegraphs for the small colony of South Australia. But first he needed a wife. The young man was Charles Heavitree Todd. What he failed to mention was his real ambition - to string a telegraph wire across one of the last uncrossed colonial wildernesses and to connect Australia with Britain. The young woman who offered herself as his partner in these wild ventures was Alice, his guardian's eighteen-year-old daughter. In 1997, their great-great granddaughter Alice Thomson, named after the intrepid lady, set out with her husband to follow in their footsteps and to track the telegraph and her ancestors. They travelled from Adelaide over the thousands of miles of desert, outback, swamp and mountain that Charles Todd crossed in the 1870s with 400 men. Racing against time and financial penalty clauses, dogged by disease and disaster, Todd's men paused to found Alice Springs (naming it after his wife) before heading north through the mountains towards Darwin, to join up with the undersea cable from Java. ..."--Cover.verso
Notes "The story of the man who strung the Telegraph Line across Australia, and the woman who gave her name to Alice Springs."--cover
Bibliography Includes index
Subject Thomson, Alice, 1967- -- Travel -- Australia.
Thomson, Alice, 1967-
Todd, Alice, 1836-
Todd, Charles Heavitree, 1826-1910 -- Australia
Todd, Charles Heavitree, 1826-1910 -- Travel -- Australia
Todd, Charles, 1826-1910.
Todd, Charles, 1826-1910 -- Travel -- Australia.
Overland Telegraph Line (Australia)
Overland Telegraph Line (N.T. and S.A.) -- History.
Telegraph -- Australia -- History -- 19th century.
Telegraph -- Australia -- History.
SUBJECT Alice Springs (N.T.) http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n82070039 -- History. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh99005024
Australia -- Description and travel. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85009579
ISBN 0099272822
070116493X
0701166762
Other Titles Singing line : the man who strung the telegraph across Australia and the woman who gave her name to Alice Springs