Greenwich and Woolwich and the start of the international telecoms revolution

 

This week I thought I should tell you about an article by one of our local industrial historians, Alan Burkett Gray, and perhaps discuss some of the issues he’s raised. This is an article in the latest edition of London’s Industrial Archaeology N.22 which is produced by the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society.  (http://www.glias.org.uk/journals/LIA22_ABG_Greenwich.pdf)

At Enderby Wharf, right up to when the new flats were first built and the site changed, if you stood there looking at the River for a while, some old chap would always come up and say to you that this is where the Atlantic Cable was made and loaded on to Great Eastern to take it across to America. We seem to have run out of such old chaps now and less and less people know about the past – Brunel’s Great Eastern and the Atlantic cable, which changed all our lives.

Alan’s article is entitled ‘Greenwich and Woolwich and the start of the international telecoms revolution’.  Now I know that Alan has been going around giving talks to a lot of the local societies, history groups and others in Greenwich and surrounding areas - he’s even done one talk at Bletchley Park itself!!!  He talks about how London was a centre for the development of international telecoms and digital technology up until very recently. He says that in Greenwich and Woolwich in p particular there was a great deal of general research on the subject. Most importantly in Greenwich factories the networks were developed which go around the world and allow the communication which we now take for granted through the Internet.  Greenwich workplaces and Greenwich workers did something that we should be proud of.

He begins by pointing out the tremendous technological changes of the past three centuries and how industrial archaeologists and historians have sometimes described how this has affected all sorts of   industries – docks, roads brewing, and gas and so on. But industrial historians have not paid much attention to the electric telegraph and telecommunications industries despite the effects they I have had on our lives

Starting at the beginning.  He talks about how the Romans would have sent messages around their empire and however efficient they might have been the time taken to get a reply was immense. He goes on to say how delays in getting messages sometimes had dire effects - he mentions in particular how the two armies fighting in the American War of Independence did not know that a peace treaty had been signed in Paris in September 1783.  It was not ratified in America until four months later and then didn’t get back to Paris for yet another three months.

He discusses the development of manual semaphore based systems - which of course was used in Greenwich at Shooters Hill, along with a site in Maryon Park and, just outside our, borders what is now Telegraph Hill Park in Lewisham, then called Plow Garlic Hill.

He describes how London-based scientists like Faraday developed the principles of electromagnetism.  Others considered applications for it, found a customer in the early railways and it was for them that cable based communication was initially developed.  He touches briefly n the necessity for a worldwide standard time system and the setting u of Greenwich Mean Time.

Continuing the story in Greenwich he describes the foundation of what became Telcon - Telegraph Construction and Maintenance - based at Enderby Wharf.  He then goes into the whole exciting and important story of the Atlantic Telegraph;   a symbol of the possibilities of cable based telegraph systems with potential for changing the world – the Americans would then have known about that peace treaty in Paris within an hour f its signing!

The Atlantic cable was made in Greenwich and this was just the start.  Cables made in Greenwich then went to India, South America and beyond - changing the world as they went

He then talks about Siemens brothers and their Woolwich based factory and how they made cables but also undertook a vast amount of research and manufacture in telephones and telephone equipment and much else. He continues with the many changes and takeovers into the mid 20th century. Throughout there is continued research, innovation and invention.  He also describes hw in the 1960s they supported  J. Lyons in developing, Leo, the world’s first commercial business computer in London – but he  doesn’t mention how Greenwich Council in the 1960s pioneered the use by a local authority f digital records and communications using one of the first Le machines

The development of optical fibre technology and a Nobel Prize went recently to Charles Kao who had been educated in Woolwich and worked for Standard Telephones and Cables here in Greenwich at Enderby Wharf.

Alan outlines some of the work which has gone on at Enderby Wharf recently and how Enderby House with its important role in the history of international telecoms has been turned into a pub. He talks a bit about the Enderby Group in which both he and I were involved from the start. We made a big fuss at the state of Enderby House which had been left by the developer to rot - basically there had been no security on the next door site and every vandal in Greenwich was getting in and wrecking this interesting and important building.  We took photographs and press released them and all of a sudden there was a security fence around the building!   

I don’t want to go on about Enderby House now, but it is a pub - please look at their history page!   (https://www.enderbyhousepub.co.uk/the-history-of-enderby-house)

Anyway the house was kept in the end and as Alan says it’s there because a group of us locals campaigned for its survival. 

This is all well and good and I would very much encourage any local society who wants a speaker or anything to contact Alan and hear what he has to say. Contact me or Alan via the Greenwich Industrial History Face book page in order to find out more about how digital technology was developed here and the cable industry in Greenwich

Alan’s talk can be extended into other aspects of these technologies developed in London – so much was developed -in London which contributes to our modern world of electronics.  There seems to be the idea out now that it all started in America – probably Los Angeles – and this view is fostered by American websites skewing it towards the US.  Even here, at Enderby Wharf, the one new road named for a person involved in the development of telecoms systems is named for American entrepreneur Cyrus Field - none of the British innovators gets a look in.

 I’ve mentioned above the Leo – the first ever business computer developed in London for J.Lyons. I should alsoadd in our local computer firm, Elliot Automation, which was on the Greenwich Lewisham borders.  In 1969  I worked for Computer Weekly magazine and both Leo and Elliott’s were featured in our pages.  We took it for granted then that the computer and telecoms industries were local for us in both development and manufacture – and that London industries were world leaders in the technology.

Back to 2017 and the Enderby Group.  We worked to tell the true story of Enderby House and used the wonderful website set up by Bill Burns in New York. (https://atlantic-cable.com/) It is so vast I can’t begin to guess how many pages is in it. It covers every element of cable technology in detail. Between us we produced leaflets and newsletters.  Group member Stewart Ash produced two books one about the Enderby family and one about the cable manufacture. Both can be found on the Atlantic Cable web site

Stewart and some other cable historians around the world write in Sub-Tel Forum which is “your go-to source for in-depth articles, expert opinions, and the latest trends” but also takes an interest in the history of the industry (https://subtelforum.com/magazine/)

Greenwich industrial History Society over the past few years has had many different speakers from various disciplines describing aspects of cable manufacture - for instance a couple of years ago we had Professor Cassie Newland talking about the colonial areas from which the raw materials were supplied for cable making in Greenwich and the conditions of the workers in those territories and the sort work they did.

We also hoped we could have some sort of museum or visitor experience here in Greenwich. There are exhibitions elsewhere.  The Atlantic cable left Europe at Valentia in Ireland and arrived in America at Heart’s Content in Newfoundland.  Both of these small villages have museums and visitor experiences where you can go and find out about the Atlantic cable.  (https://www.seethesites.ca/sites/hearts-content-cable-station/) (https://www.valentiacable.com/) Here, where it was made, we have nothing.

On the Riverside at Enderby is some preserved cable gear and there is an attempt to get it listed. We would appreciate support for that.   There are also two art works.  One which has been there about 15 years is on the steps going down into the river which cover a mediaeval sluice. It’s a carving which describes the history of the cable industry.   The other is called ‘Lay Lines’ and looks like a series of cylinders which you can sit on.  These cylinders are giant replicas of various important bits of cable. This artwork was by Bobby Lloyd and commissioned as part of the agreement for planning consent for all those flats

Greenwich Industrial History Society is keen to support ways of getting the message out about Greenwich Woolwich and the world changing telecommunications industry. Greenwich promotes stories about Tudor kings and Queens as its tourist offer but surely it could also cover the way in which the area contributed to the modern world and the way we function today with international communications read out

Meanwhile read Alan's article on new tech in London and Greenwich’s contribution to that.  We need to ut these achievements in their rightful historical place.