Telegraph Office

Reproduction of Denfield General Store Annex
Built 2017
Representative of a c. 1920 Telegraph Office

Although the Denfield General Store originally had both a back addition (a kitchen that later served as a barbershop in the 1950s) and a two-storey annex, only the main building was brought to the Village in 1997.  The museum had always planned to rebuild the annex and in 2017 a reproduction of it opened to the public with a Rotary Office in the front and a tinsmith shop in the back.  In 2024, the front portion of the annex was reimagined as a rural telegraph office. The Telegraph connected people through personal messages and was essential in railway operation, and communicating and sharing news, weather, stock market reports, and emergency information.

 The first telegraph transmitted in Canada was between Toronto and Hamilton on December 19th, 1846.  In 1886, a trans-Canada telegraph line was completed between Nova Scotia and British Columbia, connecting the country coast to coast. During the early 1900s, no country in the world enjoyed a more extensive telegraph system than Canada, with hundreds of offices across the nation. For small towns and villages, such as the ones in Middlesex County, this convenience of near-instant communication had incredible value to these isolated communities.

London received its first telegram, from St. Catherines, on September 18, 1848 at the London Line of Telegraph office on Ridout Street. By the 1900s, Great North Western Telegraph Co. and the Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraph Co. had local offices at the northwest corner of Richmond and King Streets. Throughout the City, hundreds of    telegrams were sent daily, sharing everything from train schedules to private messages.

 Telegrams were not cheap! In 1892, the cost between London and:

• Ontario Towns: 25¢ for 10 words plus 1¢ per additional word. ($7.80 in 2024)

• Great Britain: 25¢ per word ($7.80 in 2024)

• Australia: 98¢ to $2.31 per word ($32 to $72 in 2024)

Women in the Office

In the first decade of the 20th century the number of women in the labour force increased by 50%, particularly in office and clerical occupations. The telegraph industry was one of the few workplaces where both men and women worked in the same office.  Women usually began in a clerical position, then became telegraphers by learning telegraphy during their spare time; or entered the industry only after attending telegraph school to become an operator. Although both genders did equal work as operators, their pay was not equal - with women’s salaries being only half of what men earned at this time. Telegraph companies later hired women to work on the new automatic telegraph keys as they required less training, and women’s lower wages kept operating costs down.

Supported by the Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program, the Sifton Family Foundation, the Good Foundation Inc. and the Rotary Club of London.