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Semaphore Telegraphy rendered notable if limited service during the siege of Lucknow in 1817. The Residency, in which Sir Henry Lawrence Chief Commissioner and his force were besieged after 1 July, stood on a site a little higher than the city. The arrival of Sir Henry Havelock and Sir James Outram's relief troops on 25 September brought forces sufficient to prolong the defence but not to raise the siege. In fact, the relief force itself was besieged by the rebels and its communications were cut with the Alambagh, a large house with a walled enclosure south of the city. The force had left its baggage train there, guarded by 300 men.
In the sorely battered Residency it was decided to try communicating with the Alambagh, though the distance was about three-and-a-half miles and there was often a haze over the intervening city. Martin Gubbins, Financial Commissioner in the Residency, turned up particulars of Popham's Semaphore in the Penny Cyclopaedia. A machine of the Popham type was made and erected on the roof of the Residency building. Anglo-Indian lads from the Martiniere College were deputed to work it. A despatch was sent by runner to the Commander at the Alambagh containing instructions and plans for the construction of the Semaphore an extract from the despatch as follows:
The evening before the day on which we purpose telegraphing to you a bonfire will be lit on the highest point of our position to enable you to know exactly our whereabouts. A similar illumination on top of the Alambagh will be proof to us that our signal has succeeded.
We shall signal at twelve noon, of each day. the time best suited: for the enemy annoy us least at this hour and our signallers consequently will incur less danger. 
The reference to the danger to the signallers in their exposed position, showed well merited concern for the brave boys of the Martiniere College who operated the semaphore.
The Popham(1) semaphore, consisted of two arms on a thirty foot cylindrical wooden tower. The arms were pivoted 12 ft up and at the top, each arm being 8 ft long and 15" wide. Each arm could take up six positions, enabling in all 48 separate signals to be made.
When the two semaphores started operating the Residency could make no sense of the message received. until it was realised that the operators at the Alambagh were standing on the opposite side of the semaphore to the one which the Residency signallers stood, so that what was interpreted as the left hand side of the machine by the Alambagh was seen as the right hand side by the Residency. The code was reversed accordingly and all was well.
Soon after the telegraph was established, the Residency was successfully evacuated. and its occupants transferred to the Alambagh on 25-26 November 1857.
(1)Rear Admiral Sir Henry Riggs Popham. KGB, KCG. KM, FRS, 1762-1820. who invented the Land Semaphore.
Acknowledgements to "The Old Telegraph" by Geoffrey Wilson. | 
