Page 83 - Bulletin 11 2007

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The first really big item of general news was transmitted three months after the
telegraph line had been opened. Prince Alfred had come to the Cape to inaugurate the

construction of the breakwater in Table Bay and to open the Public Library. It was
expected that he would arrive in Table Bay, and he was anxiously awaited for two

months. There was no radio in those days. However, Captain Tarleton decided to put in

at Simon’s Bay. It was winter and Table Bay was none too safe in winter. Two ships
had been wrecked in Table Bay a few weeks earlier - the British brig Sarah Charlotte
rd
th
on 3 July, and the British barque Sir Henry Pottinger on 4 July. As soon as the
Euryalus was sighted, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, the news was sent to Cape

Town by the “electric wings” of the telegraph line. Sir George Grey immediately
despatched his best carriage and six bay horses. The next day “was as lovely as ever

graced a Cape winter. The sky was without a speck. The clouds had all wept themselves

away, and the winds had fallen asleep from sheer weariness. The broad bay shone calm
and blue with such a deceitful stillness that only the wrecks upon the shore [at the

Woodstock-Salt River beach] reminded us of what it could be in its angry mood”. (Cape

Argus, 26 July 1860).

The Prince passed through Kalk Bay in the open carriage that morning, 25 July. On 1
August, the Lieutenant-Governor, General Wynyard gave a ball at the Castle in honour

of the Prince. Mr Charlton Wollaston, Engineer and Manager of the Telegraph
Company, had erected an electric light above the inner entrance. The Cape Monitor of 4

August 1860 described it as “the first electric light which has ever been publicly

exhibited in this colony.” The Castle yard was brilliantly lit. By coincidence, there was
an eclipse of the Moon at the same time. It was already partly in the Earth’s shadow as

it came up. Advocate Cole, editor of the Cape Monthly Magazine, who was present at
the ball, wrote:

And the Castle Square
Is bright with the glare
Of torches and flambeaux, while high in the air,
The electric light
With its dazzling white
Dims even the Moon, and makes day of the night.