Turning Over New Leaves: Telegraphy and the Conservation of Gutta-Percha (1850-1939)

This project will examine the importance of conservation and sustainability practices to the public image of the Selborne Plantation in the Federated Malay State (FMS) of Pahang. Owned by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (Telcon), it was established in 1913 as a sustainable gutta percha plantation to secure a British-owned source of the precious natural latex, indispensable for insulating the global network of submarine telegraph cables that connected the world, drove globalisation in the 19th and 20th centuries, and laid the foundations for today's information age. By the 1930s, Selborne's management became active in the conservation movement sweeping the Malay Peninsula that eventually culminated in the founding of the peninsula's first national park.

Currently, most historiography on submarine cable telegraphy focus on their technical development, significance to international and domestic politics, and role in media. This project is more in line with the studies of more recent years where Helen Godfrey, Cassie Newland, and John Tully have analysed the significant environmental impact of the industry in the late 19th century. This project differs by focusing more on Telcon's sustainability strategies, how it played out on the ground on the Malay Peninsula, how peninsular dynamics in turn influenced Telcon, and in using a 20th century case study. The main question being asked, unexplored in existing historiography, is to what extent were sustainability strategies such as plantation building, a priority for Telcon's overall strategy? Also significant: how much did the management of the Selborne Plantation and their on-the-ground experience influence the company's strategies and why did they align themselves with the 1930s pro-conservation movement?

This project is part of the SWW DTP2 Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA) project: Sustaining the Nervous System of the World: An Environmental History of Submarine Cable Telegraphy, Circa 1880-1940. Primary research will be conducted at the PK Porthcurno Museum of Global Communications, to utilise archived Telcon documents; at the National Archives in Kew for details on King George V's Commission to investigate wildlife conservation on the Malay Peninsula; the National Archives of Malaysia for accounts of the Wild Life Commissions and the origins of the conservation movement; and the State Archives of Pahang to understand the Selborne Plantation's interactions with the state government regarding environmental initiatives. The main approaches used will be global history and frontier studies to best capture the complexity of interactions, actors, and motivations that linked Britain, British Cable Companies, Dutch Rubber Companies, and the Malay Peninsula.

Given the importance of sustainability goals and environmental conservation to our society today, public outreach is also essential. I will have a 6-month placement at PK Porthcurno, where I will obtain professional training in archival and curatorial practices and contribute to catalogue descriptions for the museum's archives. These efforts will make the collections and documents more accessible to the public. Another output will be an exhibition inspired by this research at PK Porthcurno. To prepare for designing this exhibit, I will also take advantage of classes in Heritage Management at Bath Spa University