Samuel Canning

Sir Samuel Canning (1823–1908) was an English pioneer of submarine telegraphy.

Born at Ogbourne St. Andrew, Wiltshire, on 21 July 1823, he was son of Robert Canning of Ogbourne and his wife Frances Hyde; he was educated at Salisbury.

Canning gained his first engineering experience (1844–9) as assistant to Messrs. Locke & Errington on the Great Western railway extensions, and as resident engineer on the Liverpool, Ormskirk and Preston railway.

Canning turned in 1852 to submarine telegraphy, and with Messrs. Glass & Elliot laid in 1855–6 his first cable: it connected Cape Breton Island with Newfoundland. In 1857 he assisted Charles Bright in the construction and laying of the first Atlantic cable, and he was on board HMS Agamemnon during the submerging of the cable in 1857 and 1858. Subsequently, to 1865, he laid for the same employers cables in the deep waters of the Mediterranean and other seas.

When the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company was formed in 1865, Canning was appointed its chief engineer. He had charge of the manufacture and laying of the transatlantic telegraph cables of 1865 and 1866, for which the company were the contractors. This work involved the fitting-out of the SS Great Eastern. On 2 August 1865 the cable broke in 2000 fathoms of water. After a second cable had been successfully laid by the Great Eastern (13–27 July 1866) Canning set to work to recover the broken cable, using special grappling machinery, which he devised for the purpose. After several failures the cable was eventually recovered on 2 September 1866.

For these services Canning was knighted in 1866, and Luís I of Portugal conferred on him the Order of St. Jago d'Espada. In 1869 he laid the French Atlantic cable between Brest and Duxbury, Massachusetts.

After retiring from the Telegraph Construction Company, Canning practised as a consulting engineer in matters connected with telegraphy, and, among other work, superintended the laying of the Marseilles-Algiers and other cables for the India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company. He acted later as adviser to the West Indian and Panama and other telegraph companies. He was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (from 1 February 1876) and the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

Canning died at 1 Inverness Gardens, Kensington, on 24 September 1908, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

Canning married in 1859 Elizabeth Anne (died 1909), daughter of W. H. Gale of Grately, Hampshire, by whom he had three sons and three daughters.