In April 1849, the newspaper Home News reported on the fate of a signalling system that was on the cusp of being superseded by the latest in electrically powered communications. Under the nostalgic headline ‘The Last of the Semaphores’, the paper announced that the remaining station on the outdated messaging line would be ‘finally broken up in the course of the ensuing week’.

When work started on the 70-mile Portsmouth to London semaphore line almost 30 years beforehand, it was the original information superhighway of its day. Long-range military communication had always been a challenge, never more so than in times of war when speed was of the essence and being able to effectively communicate orders could mean the difference between life and death. Various methods had been tried over the centuries, with lit beacons the traditional means of transmitting messages, but these could signal either a warning or a victory – without context, it was up to the receiver to decipher what the sender was trying to communicate, which no doubt had mixed results.

In the Napoleonic era, the French – being a little ahead of the British – started to use a type of signalling system invented by Claude Chappe in 1792. Lines of towers with a semaphore rig were built between five and 20 miles’ distance from each other. An operator, whose role was to watch the neighbouring tower through a telescope, would see the message spelled out via moveable arms. The message would then be passed on to the next tower along.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the British experimented with a line of visual communication stations called shutter telegraph stations. These buildings were little more than a temporary hut with a twenty-foot vertical frame on the roof, on which six shutters in two columns were moved to display coded messages. ‘The present construction of the Telegraph is extremely simple, and it is worked with the utmost ease, and readily understood,’ wrote the Northampton Mercury in August 1796. ‘The characters consist of such matter as most frequently occur in naval correspondence, such as ship, of the line, North Seas, Admiral, &c. and prevent the possibility of their being deciphered by improper people…’ The only drawback of the shutter telegraph was visibility. It relied on clear weather, which anyone in Britain can tell you can never be guaranteed. The shutter telegraphs were deemed unnecessary once the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815.

In early 1815 the Admiralty realised they may have been a little hasty in condemning the shutter telegraphs, and issued a statement declaring, ‘There can be no question that, in time of peace, the Telegraphs will be of little or no use; but it does not from thence follow that they ought not to be kept up for the same reason that batteries and other works of defence are maintained during peace… There is no period of War at which the communication by telegraph is more useful than at its commencement.’

The following year the Admiralty decided to investigate a permanent replacement for the shutter system. The Royal Navy already had its own method of passing messages between ships, using a system of flags in combination. In 1800, Rear Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham created the first flag system for individual letters – famously used by Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 to declare, ‘England expects that every man will do his duty.’ Popham developed the idea further by proposing moveable wooden arms attached to a mast to signal. The system was like the French semaphore system invented by Chappe but was simplified to only two signal arms. The same year a trial line was built, and eight stations were erected between the Admiralty and Chatham. One shutter station lieutenant reported, ‘I think the mast with two arms a decided superiority, particularly in point of sight, as no day during the whole winter has either of the Stations which we look to (West Square and Red Hill) been out of sight excepting when a close fog; no haze what-ever prevented us seeing and working.’

The trial was a success and the Admiralty decided to create a permanent route between London and Portsmouth Dockyard. A naval surveyor called Thomas Goddard was commissioned to survey the 14 sites that were necessary to cover the 75-mile distance of the line. With a mule to carry his equipment and two assistants, Goddard traipsed up numerous promising hills, often battling both the elements and the foliage to find the best locations for the towers – which would hopefully be better situated than their shutter telegraph predecessors.

The line started at Admiralty House and then ran on to Chelsea, Putney Heath, Kingston Hill (Coombe), Cooper’s Hill, Chatley Heath (also called Pointers Hill), Pewley Hill (Guildford), Bannicle Hill (near Witley), Haste Hill (near Haslemere), Older Hill (north-west of Midhurst), Beacon Hill, Compton, Camp Down (near Bedhampton), Lumps Fort and finally Portsmouth Dockyard.

Work on the route began in December 1820. The buildings were well designed, solid, one or two-storey dwellings in brick – except for Chatley Heath, which needed to be five storeys so it could be seen by its neighbouring stations. All were provided with an operating room and living quarters at the base to house the semaphore operator – typically a Royal Navy lieutenant who was close to retirement and down on his luck – plus his family, and often an assistant too, who would need to be handy with a telescope. Records show that at Beacon Hill, the assistant was obliged to find alternative lodgings because the lieutenant had eight children and there was no space for him. Inhabitants of the tower weren’t always complimentary of the construction quality. ‘Water still finds its way through centre of the mast even to the lower room,’ wrote Lieutenant Harries of Chatley Heath to the Admiralty in 1826. ‘[We have] great difficulty in getting any workman in neighbourhood to do any small jobs by the distance we are from their abode… my family and myself are almost poor hermits.’ It wasn’t the only gripe. Letters to the Admiralty show that curious passers-by would try and open the shutters on the tower’s windows to see what was going on inside!

Life in the station was ruled by a set of strict instructions and regulations. Research into the Chatley Heath tower by its custodians, The Landmark Trust, revealed that the semaphore towers were run like a military operation, even down to the housekeeping standards: ‘A station was to be swept once day and washed twice a week in summer and once in autumn… 6d a day was allowed for coal and candles.’ Lieutenants-in-charge received 3s a day plus their half-pay pension, while their assistants got 2s 4d.

The buildings were ready for use in early 1822, and on 2 February the Portsmouth tower had a VIP visit. ‘On Sunday his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence arrived here from London… and made a visit to the Dockyard and Southsea Castle,’ wrote the Portsmouth correspondent for the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser. His Royal Highness ‘inspected the new Semaphore erecting on the Kings slaughter-house, near the Platform Battery, of the admirable situation of which, and the comfortable arrangements made for the accommodation of the Officers and men to be employed therein, being so decidedly preferable to any before adopted…’

The line was so successful that soon the Admiralty were planning an extension to Plymouth. Thomas Goddard was once again called upon in 1822 for his surveying skills to establish a viable route between Portsmouth and Plymouth. This was later changed to a direct line from London, branching from the five-storey tower at Chatley Heath. Only nine were eventually built and with peace in Europe at the time, the Admiralty lost interest in the scheme and construction was suspended in 1827.

By the 1840s, the Admiralty began to consider upgrading the system again – finally settling on electric telegraph cables that could be installed alongside railway lines. In 1847 the semaphore towers that had become such a recognisable part of the landscape were decommissioned. The last signal was sent on 31 December 1847. This led to concerns over what would become of the now defunct semaphore equipment, as well as the Royal Navy Lieutenants who had operated it, many of whom were past retirement age and with no other means to support themselves. ‘The semaphore has been the home of many veteran lieutenant, the last berth to be given—the very last to be asked or accepted as long as a spark of hope remained of obtaining anything better, but now even this resource is no longer available,’ wrote the Evening Mail on the day of the final signal.

Whatever became of the out-of-work lieutenants has been lost to history, but hopefully they suffered a better fate than the stations they lived and worked in. Once unoccupied, many of the stations were either left to ruin and quietly fell down or were demolished to make way for new buildings. Some were refitted as dwellings, such as in Guildford (Semaphore House on Pewley Hill), Surrey and Four Marks (Semaphore Farm), Hampshire. The only surviving tower is Chatley Heath, now owned by conservation charity The Landmark Trust and fully restored as a holiday let – including the original working semaphore mechanism and arms.

These unique remnants of naval communication heritage were, fortunately, only ever used in peacetime – leaving lots of time for those in the rural stations to indulge in other pastimes. When the first lieutenant of Chatley Heath, the green fingered Edward Harries, retired in 1827 at the age of 63 he left behind ‘3 cherry trees – 3 plum – 1 greengage – 1 apricot – 6 filbert – 15 apple trees in full bearing. A raspberry plantation, strawberry beds, gooseberry and currant trees, upwards of 500 shrubs of various sorts, a summerhouse with mast and rigging etc. Woodhouse, henhouse and pigsty thatched.’ Perhaps living on top of an isolated hill wasn’t quite so bad after all… {