The Submarine Telegraph Company was a British company which laid and operated submarine telegraph cables. Jacob and John Watkins Brett formed the English Channel Submarine Telegraph Company to lay the first submarine telegraph cable across the English Channel. An unarmoured cable with gutta-percha insulation was laid in 1850. The recently introduced gutta-percha was the first thermoplastic material available to cable makers and was resistant to seawater. This first cable was a failure and was soon broken by a fishing boat.