Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Bright, Charles Tilston
BRIGHT, Sir Charles Tilston, F.R.A.S., F.R.G.S., civil engineer, the son of Brailsford Bright, Esq., born in 1832, commenced the active business of his profession in 1850, and in 1853, as engineer to the English and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company, was immediately concerned in the union of Great Britain with Ireland by submarine telegraph. In 1856 he was one of four original projectors of a line of telegraph between the west coast of Ireland and America, which work, as engineer to the Atlantic Telegraph Company, he accomplished in Aug., 1858, when he received the honour of knighthood from the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Several messages were transmitted between London and New York and other places; amongst them congratulatory addresses between Her Majesty and the President of the United States, and orders countermanding the despatch of two regiments from Canada to India, by which the country saved upwards of £50, 000. The line, however, ceased to work a few weeks afterwards. Sir C. Bright was returned for Greenwich at the general election of 1865, and continued to represent that constituency till Dec., 1868.