Charles Todd’s Magnificent Obsession

It was the greatest feat of engineering in nineteenth-century Australia, but it very nearly collapsed in the face of monumental obstacles.

The year was 1870, and mail took six weeks to get to England by sea. Australians hungered for the speedy communication a telegraph connection would bring. Engineer Charles Todd promised that he could string up wires on poles from Adelaide over 3,000 kilometres to an undersea cable in Darwin harbour in just eighteen months. It was a wild gamble that became an epic race against time.

This is the extraordinary story of the building of the Overland Telegraph. Three teams of workers crossed deserts, mountains, and rivers in flood, following the rough maps that John McDouall Stuart had brought back from his final expedition. They encountered Aboriginal people who had never seen a European, and battled crocodiles, mosquitoes, mysterious illnesses and starvation. Drawing on original letters and journals, historian David Dufty has uncovered never-before-published details about this groundbreaking project.

This is a tale of obsession and heroism, violence and tragedy, and above all, it's a totally compelling yarn.