John Pender
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Sir John Pender KCMG GCMG FSA FRSE was a Scottish submarine communications cable pioneer and politician.
October 1871 caricature of Pender from Vanity Fair
Grave of Pender in the Church of All Saints, Foots Cray
Submarine communications cable
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A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the seabed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables were laid beginning in the 1850s and carried telegraphy traffic, establishing the first instant telecommunications links between continents, such as the first transatlantic telegraph cable which became operational on 16 August 1858.
![Submarine cables are laid using special cable layer ships, such as the modern René Descartes [fr], operated by Orange Marine.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/France_Telecom_Marine_Rene_Descartes_p1150247.jpg/600px-France_Telecom_Marine_Rene_Descartes_p1150247.jpg)
Submarine cables are laid using special cable layer ships, such as the modern René Descartes [fr], operated by Orange Marine.
A telegraph stamp of the British & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Co. Limited (c. 1862).
Operators in the submarine telegraph cable room at the GPO's Central Telegraph Office in London c. 1898
Landing of an Italy-USA cable (4,704 nautical miles long), on Rockaway Beach, Queens, New York, January 1925.