The technological pioneer who brought the telephone to Catalonia

On December 16, 1877, an exceptional event occurred that placed Catalonia at the forefront of global technology. On that day, at the School of Industrial Engineers of Barcelona, the first telephone tests in the entire State and some of the first in the world took place.

It should be noted that Alexander Graham Bell had presented his invention only one year and nine months earlier, so the tests in Barcelona were truly early. However, it must be said in passing that although Bell has been commonly considered the inventor of the telephone, in later times, already in the 21st century, the invention was recognized to the Italian Antonio Meucci, who had named the device the tele-trophone. Beyond patent disputes, in Catalonia, the key figure in the import of the telephone was Tomàs Dalmau, along with his father, the optician and inventor Francesc Dalmau Faura.

The fact that his father, Francesc, was a pioneer of technology in the country decisively marked the future of Tomàs Dalmau, who dedicated his entire life to technological innovation. Long before the beginnings of telephony, which we have just explained, our protagonist had already learned the watchmaking trade and had begun working in his father's company, which, in addition to manufacturing and importing technology, was dedicated to organizing optical-based shows (historical cosmorama, virtual journeys, magic lantern, and stereoscopic photography). Some of the devices that the family company brought to Catalonia were the lightning rod, the electric bell, and the Gramme dynamo (the first commercial device that generated direct current). In 1876, Tomàs Dalmau was accepted into the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona.

After the first telephone communication experiments in the University of Barcelona building, they soon expanded their radius of action with communications between Parc de la Ciutadella and Montjuïc mountain, and the cities of Barcelona and Girona. As there was no telephone network yet, they used telegraph lines for these experiments. In parallel, Tomàs Dalmau began to distribute electricity to clients in the Catalan capital (School of Engineers, Maquinista Terrestre i Marítima, and various factories), which led to the creation of the country's first electricity company, the Societat Espanyola d’Electricitat (1881).

In April 1875, a demonstration of electricity-generated light was carried out in front of local scientists and a large public, and it consisted of the production of a large beam of light through the creation of a voltaic arc in a device installed on the frigate Victòria. Barcelona's night was spectacularly illuminated and, according to some sources, the glow was seen up to six kilometers away. Those first electrical installations were based on the aforementioned Gramme dynamo, which in turn was powered by a steam engine or gas combustion engines. Dalmau's electricity clients were not only local, but he extended the business to the rest of the peninsula and even to Cuba and the Philippines. Dalmau's voracity to make the latest world technologies available to Catalans also reached Edison's phonograph, which was presented around Christmas 1878.

Sale to foreign investors

The Spanish Electricity Company not only dedicated itself to supplying electric fluid to its clients, but only three years after its founding it obtained the first concession for a telephone network. Unfortunately, the market did not grow as quickly as the investors expected – with Dalmau at the helm – and the company went into receivership in 1889, later accepting the British Woodhouse and Rawson as majority shareholder. This did not save the company, which in 1894 was sold to the all-powerful Compañía Barcelonesa de Electricidad, an entity created by Emil Rathenau's AEG, Deutsche Bank, and the Societé Lyonaise des Eaux (owners of Aigües de Barcelona), and which had some local partners. In 1912, Barcelonesa ended up in the hands of Barcelona Traction, Light & Power, the popular Canadenca.

Dalmau's seed would germinate years after his death, because both electric lighting and telephony would become completely massive in Catalonia. If the Spanish Electricity Company had not managed to make telephony profitable, the Compañía Peninsular de Teléfonos and the Sociedad General de Teléfonos would, which in 1924 would end up integrated into Telefónica.