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Job title

Telgraf Insaa Idaresi

Group of job titles: Telegraph service

Stored spellings: telgraf insaa idaresi

1 official held the job title Telgraf Insaa Idaresi. Its 1 annual entry fall in 1854/55 (AH 1271). One monthly salary is recorded, 1,500 kuruş. The entries name 1 place, Varna.

Officials
1
Years on recordAH 1271, 1 year with an entry
1854/55
Median monthly salaryfrom 1 recorded salary
1,500 kuruş
Places with officials
1

Profile of the group: Telegraph service

No source read describes Telgraf Insaa Idaresi by itself, so this is the profile of its group of job titles.

The telegraph service of the Ottoman state, a state monopoly from the start.1 Its offices grew from 52 in 1863 to 320 in 1869,2 and the postal guide of 1892 lists about 680.3

Duties

  • take in, send and receive telegrams for the state and for private senders, state telegrams first4,5
  • keep the lines and the apparatus working6,7

Tools and technology

  • Morse apparatus in most offices and Hughes printing telegraphs in a few: 1,014 Morse and 12 Hughes sets in 18698
  • batteries, cups and the other electrical parts of the apparatus6
  • lines on poles, and submarine cables9
  • apparatus made from 1869 in the service's own factory in Istanbul10

Hard skills

  • telegraph science, the treasury's methods of accounting, and both Turkish and French: in December 1871 the ministry reported that the apprentices trained at the Beyoğlu telegraph office lacked them11
  • office procedure and record keeping, which the school of 1872 was to teach with telegraph science and accounting12

Requirements for entry

  • entry as an unpaid trainee (mülazım) in a telegraph or post office, appointed with a salary after learning the work and passing examinations13,14
  • from 1881 also from Darüşşafaka, whose first eight graduates entered the ministry's offices that year15
  • from 1911 through the ministry's new school, entered by competitive examination16,17

History

The first lines were built in 1855 during the Crimean War,18 and the Telegraph Directorate was founded the same year.2 Telegrams in Turkish were sent from 1856, with a Turkish Morse code.19 In 1869 the service had 3,607 employees by one count.20 The telegraph was joined with the post in 1871.2,21

Notes

  1. Davison, Roderic H. (2003). Osmanlı İmparatorluğuna elektrikli telgrafın girişi. Translated by Durdu Mehmet Burak. OTAM 14, 347-386. The Turkish translation of The advent of the electric telegraph in the Ottoman Empire, in Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774-1923 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 133-165; pages are those of the translation, pp. 360-361.
  2. Davison (2003), p. 361.
  3. Okan, Ayşegül (2003). The Ottoman postal and telegraph services in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. MA thesis, Boğaziçi University, Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, p. 100: Table 3 gives 679 telegraph offices and the text of the page 685.
  4. Davison (2003), p. 368.
  5. Güneş, Mahir Melih (2026). Anadolu'da Telgrafın Toplumsal Tarihi (1856-1908). Doctoral thesis, Hacettepe University, p. 108, note 261. Online copy (read 11 October 2026).
  6. Güneş (2026), p. 119.
  7. Davison (2003), pp. 362, 365.
  8. Güneş (2026), pp. 108, 119.
  9. Davison (2003), pp. 349-351, 356.
  10. Davison (2003), p. 365.
  11. Ata, Bahri (2022). Telgraf Mektebi. Türk Maarif Ansiklopedisi, paragraph beginning ‘21 Eylül 1871’, which reports the submission of 28 December 1871 and the decree of 5 January 1872 (BOA, İ.DH. 1295/101755 in the sources of the entry). Online copy (read 14 October 2026).
  12. Akyıldız, Hacı Ömer (2024). Modernleşme döneminde Osmanlı memurları: posta ve telgraf çalışanları üzerine ampirik bir analiz. Doctoral thesis, Marmara University (YÖK thesis no. 910026), pp. 93-94. Online copy (read 14 October 2026).
  13. Akyıldız (2024), pp. 85-86.
  14. Güneş (2026), p. 118, note 281.
  15. Ayhan, Halis and Maviş, Hakkı (1994). Dârüşşafaka. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 9, 7-9, paragraph beginning ‘Bu programda zaman içinde’. Online copy (read 14 October 2026).
  16. Ata (2022), ‘Telgraf Mektebi’, paragraphs beginning ‘II. Meşrutiyet döneminde’ and ‘Tedrîsât-ı âliye kısmına’.
  17. Akyıldız (2024), p. 87.
  18. Davison (2003), pp. 349-352.
  19. Davison (2003), p. 375.
  20. Davison (2003), p. 362, whose note 51 gives the lower total of Tanrıkut.
  21. Ata (2022), ‘Telgraf Mektebi’, paragraph beginning ‘21 Eylül 1871’.

Each statement above ends with the number of its note, which gives the work and the page or paragraph it comes from.

Places

Places of Telgraf Insaa Idaresi, the place with most officials first
PlaceProvinceOfficialsAnnual entriesYears
VarnaDanube (Tuna) province111854/55

Ottoman officials recorded

Officials of Telgraf Insaa Idaresi
OfficialYearsAnnual entriesKuruş a monthBirthplace
Mustafa Efendi1854/5511,500Istanbul (Dersaadet)

How to read these records: years and calendars, what first recorded means, gaps between annual entries, and salaries.

Subjects