• The British deployed a worldwide system of censorship during World War I in order to intercept communications and prevent the communication of strategic intelligence between the enemy and their agents.
• The system included a man deployed to the cable station at Porthcurno in Cornwall, as well as numerous other censors deployed across the empire.
• Over 50,000 messages per day were handled by the network of 180 censors at U.K. offices.
At the outbreak of the first world war, Great Britain had the most sophisticated undersea telegraph cable system in the world, which encircled the entire globe. Realizing the importance of communications for the enemy, the British set out to undo their capability to communicate with the outside world. On August 5, 1914, a day after the British had declared war on the Germans, a British ship, the Alert, set sail from the port of Dover with a mission of sabotaging the Germans’ undersea cables and the mission was accomplished successfully.
In order to ensure that their efforts were effective, the British also implemented a worldwide system of censorship. The system included a man deployed to the cable station at Porthcurno in Cornwall, as well as numerous other censors deployed across the empire, from Hong Kong to Malta to Singapore. This man’s job title was “censor” and his purpose was to prevent the communication of strategic intelligence between the enemy and their agents.
The system was extremely effective, with the censors handling over 50,000 messages per day at U.K. offices. Not only did it cripple the Germans’ ability to communicate, but it also enabled the British to gather intelligence and stay one step ahead of the enemy. This system of censorship was a major factor in the British victory, and its legacy lives on today in the form of modern surveillance systems.