TELCON AND ITS SUCCESSORS

 

 

The one major factory still functioning on the Greenwich Peninsula is that on the site of the cable works. Over the years it has had a number of owners and names – for a long time it was Telcon and more recently the French company, Alcatel.  It is now wholly owned by Nokia

Initially the first Greenwich cable company was at Morden Wharf – and we will get there later on as we continue along the riverside path, going down river.  The first cable company here was Glass Elliot and they bought Enderby Wharf from the Enderby brothers in 1854

We have already followed the story of the Atlantic Cable and how the successful cable was made in Greenwich and that Enderby Wharf was used to site huge tanks where the manufactured cables could be coiled and inspected– to absolutely minimise the danger of imperfect cables being used and wreck he whole project. In 1864 Glass Elliott merged with the Gutta Percha Company, who provided the insulation materials, and became the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company– known as Telcon.

In 1868 another Atlantic cable was laid this time for the French. It ran from Brest but the cable was made in Greenwich and laid by Great Eastern. Four more transatlantic cables were laid before 1900.   From 1869 more and more cables were laid -   between Malta and Alexandria and then Aden to Bombay.  Great Eastern carried the whole of the India cable and was apparently painted white in order to do so. Celebrations were due to be held in 2020 on the anniversary of the laying of the India cable – but corona virus meant that they were cancelled.

Telcon had a fleet of cable ships – 18 in all. For many years the cable laying ships and repair ship were moored alongside river structures called dolphins. Some of the loading gear, installed in the 1950s still remains on the jetty as a monument to 162 years of the manufacture of submarine cable systems on Greenwich Marsh. The wharf is no longer used, and the 'dolphins' for the cable ships that were loaded here are gone. A lot of Greenwich people will remember the cable ships at Enderby Wharf, and in particular the last of them John W. Mackay which was moored alongside as a sort of exhibit until 1988. Rumour had it that she was painted up, on one side only, if the Queen came down the river

 

From the 1890s, working with Siemens Brothers in Woolwich, Telcon began to make telephone, as distinct from telegraph cables.  Initially cables were laid to Ireland and in 1912 to France.  Gradually improvements were made – some in the insulation and composition of cables, and in the technologies that allowed for continuing better and clearer communication. Changes in cable composition and development of valves began to make international telephone calls possible.

In the Second World War Telcon made over 1000 nautical miles of cable plus another 1000 miles for D Day alone. They also made telcothenene – polythene – as a cover for cables for use with radar installations.   In the 1950 repeaters began to be made and electronic techniques were used. By then Telcon – and associated companies had far more sites than just Greenwich although this riverside works was the major manufacturer of undersea cables, despite company mergers in the 1970s.  From 1961 a Greenwich made ‘repeatered’ telephone cable ran from Europe to Canada. 

 

In over 150 years work this site has been of vast importance internationally and has provided the revolutionary technology which today we take for granted.  In the 1860s, cables transmitted a few messages in Morse at 18-12 words a minute. Today fibre optic cables carry terabits of data that support the vast traffic on the Internet. 

 

 

The research facilities at Greenwich have kept it in the forefront and many new technologies have emerged. There was development of specialist materials including a specialist metallurgical section which produced – for example, Mu Metal.  Telcon were also early users of polythene as Telcothene, and later early use of PVC. There was also close collaboration with other local companies in producing new materials for use in the electrical and electronics industries. For instance in the 1870s with the setting up of Johnson and Phillips

 

A couple of years ago we had news of a Nobel Prize being awarded to Charles Kao.  He had been educated at Woolwich Poly and then worked for a while at Greenwich – his prize was for his role in the development of optical fibre technology for cables.  At Greenwich was developed the first undersea optical cable and repeater.

As satellite technology began to make itself felt so less undersea cables were made. The last cable made at Greenwich was in 1975 to run between Venezuela and Spain.   The Greenwich factory remained however the largest supplier of submarine cable systems in the world and achieved the Queen's award to industry four times.

 

AND NOW

 

In the early 21^st century Alcatel, by then owners of the works, sold the river frontage to a developer for housing.  The developer then went bankrupt and the area was left with no security.  The original developer had planned a major terminal for cruise liners on the riverside but no work on this was ever done.  A major public campaign began against the berthing of ships here, which would run polluting diesel power while there.  This appears to have been resolved when the current owners admitted there were no plans for the terminal.

 

Enderby House itself had been used as offices by the cable companies and was not in bad condition if a bit ‘tired’. Once in the ownership of the developer it was neglected and was squatted, burnt, and left to rot. As a result a campaign group was formed, the Enderby Group, to try and save the house and get it used so as to reflect some of the telecoms heritage of the area.   A new housing developer, Barratt’s, took over and soon the riverside area was covered in large blocks of flats. People began to move in.

 

The planning consent for the flats required Enderby House to be restored and Barratts stabilised the property and restored the exterior.  It was then announced that it would become a pub operated by Young’s brewery.  We are still waiting to see what will happen but the hoped for telecoms heritage centre still seems near impossible to achieve.

 

Alongside Enderby House was an office building with decorative cable and gutta percha motifs above the lintels and around the door.  This was demolished and apparently no features kept.  Also demolished was a chimney, on what once had been the site of the Beale works,

A sculpture called Lay Lines by Bobby Lloyd has also been installed together with information panels. The idea was to replicate sections through cables made on site – only much much bigger than the original. Endebry Group are grateful for the expertise of Alcatel staff some of whom seem to be able to identify and date cables from any time in the past hundred and eighty years.   It has been the resourcefulness and knowledge of the staff at Enderby Wharf which has made this in effect an international centre for the means by which we communicate round the world today.