Maritime Archive and Library
1838 (070.WAT/R)
An original 1838 copy of the Watson Code. Ship identification and the two-way transmission of basic messages involved the vessel displaying a signal of up to three flags from a code devised by Watson. It was based on a total of ten basic flags plus ‘repeaters’, known as the Watson or Liverpool Code.
Liverpool can justifiably claim some precedence in the introduction of international mercantile marine signals. Even prior to the introduction of Marryat's 'Universal' Code in 1817, vessels regularly using the Mersey were allocated a signal to be displayed when in sight of the signal station at Bidston, two and a half miles from Liverpool. In 1826 the Liverpool dock trustees decided to extend this facility to Holyhead some 70 miles away and appointed Lieutenant BL Watson to survey, design, construct and superintend the Holyhead-Liverpool Telegraph, a chain of eleven strategically sited semaphore stations. The system worked very successfully until the introduction of the electric telegraph in the 1860s. Watson's Code was followed by Marryat's Code, which in turn was replaced by the 1857 Commercial Code, the forerunner of the International Code of Signals.