Life on a Telegraphstation

All day long the telegraphists had to keep an eye on neighbouring stations and risked punishment if they missed signals or sent wrong messages. From the very beginning, the telegraph stations were manned by two telegraph managers: a "literary telegraph manager", whose job was to record the messages in the journal and a "seasoned seaman" responsible for the maintenance of the mast and ropes.

Literary telegraph manager in uniform. 1801. Coloured drawing. Post & Tele Museum.

In a report dating from June 1801, Captain Lorentz Fisker suggests introducing uniforms for the literary telegraph managers, at their own request. The literary managers wanted visible symbols that would "distinguish them from the other telegraph workers".