Do you know places in London that are significant for the history of communications, computing and information technologies?
We are looking for suggestions that will help us in an experimental project to guide mobile users through the UK’s rich history of technology. The project is called Locating Communications Heritage. In the pilot phase we are finding out how best to guide people walking around London with a mobile phone, using the locatability function of recent smartphones to reveal the significance of sites.
The idea is to link places to objects as well as to link to further contextual and archival information. There will also be the ability to record users’ memories of the history of communications technology.
So for example, if you were walking down the Strand you will see on your phone that UK’s pioneering BBC radio transmitter, 2LO, operated from Marconi House. By clicking, you could find out more about the 2LO, an extraordinary object, at the Science Museum. If your grandmother was a 2LO operator, you could record her recollections.
Places could be the sites of interesting machines (such as 2LO or the LEO computer at Cadby Hall), places of invention (such as John Ambrose Fleming’s thermionic valves in Bloomsbury), birthplaces, buildings (such as the BT Tower), or places where communications were vital (such as the London Stock Exchange).
Examples could be from the deep or recent past.
If you have examples you would like to share, or if you would just like to stay in contact with this experimental project, then please email me at ucrhjea@ucl.ac.uk,
and/or
leave a message for us by replying to this blog message.
cheers
Jon
Dr Jon Agar
From J. V. Field (Birkbeck, University of London):
Splendid project! My nominees are
1. Somewhere in Denmark Hill there was an interception station in WW2. That is where they picked up the earliest teleprinter traffic in mid 1941.
2. Though I believe the building is now a supermarket, the Post
Office Research Station (where the Colossi were built) is in Dollis Hill.
3. If you get out of London a bit, to Knockholt, on the edge of the North Downs, there are now interception stations, one of which (near Knockolt Pound) was specially built and had a landline direct to Block H at Bletchley Park. As the site (next to a building still called ‘The Grange’) seems still to be in use for a similar purpose, it might be advisable not to be seen to take too close an interest in it.
4. Basement of Selfridges annexe (formerly GPO property) is where
the secure telephone was built in WW2. it allowed Churchill to speak to Roosevelt.
Hello, I’ve sent you an email about the optical telegraph network that fed messages into the Admiralty from Napoleonic times, from 3 coastal stations. I live in Telegraph Hill so am interested…
Great idea for a project.
How about the BT Tunnels used for, among other things, the “red phone” line between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War. NY Times did a write up when BT offered the tunnels for sale recently: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/business/worldbusiness/28tunnel.html
Not a great deal to see but there’s an entrance on Furnival Street near Gray’s Inn.
I’d recommend Electra House, Moorgate, which was the Head Office of the Eastern Telegraph Company from 1902 to 1955. The firm had moved from Winchester House, Old Broad Street, but I don’t know if that still exists. The Eastern Telegraph Company was, until its amalgamation with the operating division of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, the world’s largest commercial operator of submarine telegraph cables (by 1940 operating about 155,000 of the world’s total of 350,000 miles of cable). Electra House received thousands of messages each day from all parts of the British empire whose political interests were not always aligned closely with the Eastern’s commercial interests. The government-orchestrated merger of the Eastern and Marconi in 1929 resulted in Imperial and International Communications which became Cable and Wireless in 1931.
In 1933 the administrative division of Cable and Wireless moved to a separate building on the Embankment, while the operating division remained in Electra House. But after Electra House was bombed by a V1 in 1944, both divisions occupied the Embankment building. In 1955 Cable and Wireless moved in toto to its current home, Mercury House in Theobalds Road. Electra House survived the bombing and in 1944 became the home of the City of London College and is now part of London Metropolitan University.
Another important site relating to the submarine cable industry is at Wharf Road, off City Road. This was the site of the principal works of Telegraphic Construction and Maintenance Company (later Telcon) which for most of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century was the largest manufacturer of cables. It was formed in 1864 from a merger of the India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company, which had set up the works at Wharf Road in 1850, and the cable manufacturers, Glass, Elliot and Company. The architect of the merger was the same person who founded the Eastern Telegraph Company — John Pender and it’s hardly surprising to find that the Eastern’s chief contractor for cables was Telcon. The factory was conveniently located near the canal enabling cables to be transported by water to cable-laying ships. Telcon closed its Wharf Road works in 1935 when Telcon merged with the submarine cable division of Siemens to form Submarine Cables Ltd.
Two more sites of significance to cable manufacturing are down river at Greenwich and Woolwich. Enderby Wharf in Greenwich was the site of the works of Glass, Elliot and Company. For a brief period this was also the home of another cable manufacturers, W. T. Henley’s, to whom Telcon often subcontracted work. Henley’s later moved to North Woolwich where Siemens also had its cable manufacturing works.
History of Submarine cable manufacturing.
Wharf Road off City Road was home of the Gutta Percha Company from 1845 and was important in the development of submarine cables but only manufactured the gutta percha insulation.They insulated copper conductors with gutta percha for most of the cable manufacturers including Glass Elliot,Henleys and others.A full history of the company and how it became part of the Telegraph Construction Company ( Telcon) csan be found on our web pages:
http://www.porthcurno.org.uk/documents/telcon-archives.pdf
The India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company was a quite separate company and competitor to Telcon as was W T Henley’s Works Telegraph Company who were based at North Woolwich and later expanded across the river to Gravesend.
Sadly all sites mentioned with the exception of Enderby Wharf (now home to Alcatel-Lucent) have long since ceased manufacturing submarine cables.
I suspect you will be inundated with important sites! A few suggestions for telegraphy and telephony:
Sir Francis Ronalds’ garden in Hammersmith, where he built the first working electric telegraph
Savoy Place, home to the BBC from 1923-1932 (now home to the IET Library and Archives collections, which cover a broad section of telecommunications history)
Coleman Street, site of the first UK telephone exchange
Faraday Building, Queen Victoria St, site of a BT transmiiter and an important site in WW2
BT HQ at St Martins le Grand, on the site of the old Central Telegraph Office for London
First mobile telephone call in the UK was made from St Katherine’s Docks
Are we to assume tha the brief is ‘non-physical’ communications? In other words, not including such as postal? London does have rather a lot of ‘postal’ points of interest – such as Postman’s Park, Post Office Court, Post Office Station, Rathbone Place War Memorial, Rowland Hill statue, Bruce Castle, and so on.
Likewise, is there a fixed geographical coverage? Or does it still depend on how big the list gets?
Whatever, the list of possible sites is potentially enormous, and someone is going to have to make some difficult decisions as to what does and what doesn’t go into the pot.
For example – and by means comprehensively – here are a few possibilities to consider:
The OXO Tower – Originally PO Office Power Station
Exchange Telegraph Co footway box covers – Several in the Blackfriars area
The RA in Piccadilly – Wooden mock up of the design that became the K2 telephone kiosk.
Telegraph Street – Location of the first CTO
Grays Inn Road – Cross-talk between parallel wires
Camden / Euston rail route – Cooke & Wheatstone’s demo
Temple Avenue – NTC HQ (with a statue of Mercury on top)
Temple Place – Telephone cherubs
Termuinus Building – if you’ve never seen it, you should
etc.
etc….
(Incidentally, I already have recorded geodata for most, possibly all, listed phone boxes in the London area.)
Thanks for these suggestions. The scope of ‘communications’ raises good questions. One email reminded me that London’s printing heritage should not be ignored. And Neil’s list of postal sites makes its own compelling case.
My feeling is that history of communications makes most sense when considered broadly and in context. So “communications” is not restricted to the electrical.
We also have to keep in mind what mobile *users* might understand by “communications”.
Jon
Thanks for those, Neil. I was also going to suggest the Cooke & Wheatstone experimental site from Euston to Camden.
Worth a mention is the Kingsway exchange site in tunnels under High Holborn, now up for sale. Major and secure trunk telephone switching centre during the cold war era.
Siemens got a mention above, but their Woolwich site was much more than just a cable factory, turning out exchange equipment and millions of telephones.
Similarly TMC at Dulwich. SE21, were a major manufacturer. ATE had an office at Strowger House, Arundel St WC2. Creed made their teleprinters at Croydon.
Lots of telephone rentals companies: British Home and Office Telephone Co. Ltd., Autophone House, 73 Great Peter St, SW1; General Telephone Systems Ltd, 44/50 Osnaburgh Street, London NW1 etc.
As has been remarked the list could be endless. Where do you stop?
Cheers,
Sam Hallas
Remember National Service? I was in Royal Signals from 1953 to 1955 and spent my two years, less six weeks, in Caterick Garrison. Morse code was king and I helped to teach ‘Operators Wireless and Line’ (OWLs)in 3rd Training Regiment.
I have one Bedford QLR (soon to be two) equipped with WS19 and HP Amp., receivers R107 and R209, a Field and Fortress telephone exchange, phones – Tele L, Tele J, Tele F. They are all working just as they did 50 to 70 years ago.
This (mobile) museum can go anywhere (4×4) and takes part in the International Museums Weekends.
Patricia Collins, Independent Curator in Norfolk says:
It’s not in Central London, but the role of the National Physical Laboratory in Bushy Park, Teddington has never been adeqautely acknowledged. There are many internet pioneers still in the town today.
Saw your call in the Home SSN Bulletin.
As far as the earliest history of electric telegraphy is concerned, the frontage of the central station of the Electric Telegraph Company dating from 1849 at Founders’ Court, Lothbury, in the City is still there. Its companion West End telegraph office, which had the first electric time ball on its roof in 1853, still exists at 448 Strand at Adelaide Street (it was in Nash’s pepper pots). The company’s manufactory of 1858, which had John Muirhead as manager, exists at Gloucester Road in Camden Town, next to the railway.
Unfortunately there is nothing to see of Cooke & Wheatstone’s pioneer telegraph line that ran from Euston Square to Camden Town; it was obliterated by railway works in the 1870s and 1880s.
Previously submitted off-line, but now putting up officially, apologies where some of these already suggested by others.
1/ Holborn Telephone Exchange itself has some history – the first automatic exchange in London and the first home of the Speaking Clock -which is of course represented at the Science Museum in the new Measuring Time gallery (well a mark two prototype designed for Australia, but the same technology).
2/ Also Telephone House on the corner of Temple Ave and the Embankment (next to the Temple Inn). Built as the HQ building of the National Telephone Company in 1898 and from the outside just as it was originally built, including stone cherubs holding telephone instruments and NTC logos.
3/ Would Dollis Hill be too far out? Could link to the bit of Colossus in the Science Museum computing gallery? And to thermionic valves for that matter
4/ Dare I suggest BT Centre in Newgate Street, previously the site of GPO West aka The Central Telegraph Office? The hub of the UK telegraph network and the largest telegraph station in the world. Reputedly the only building the Luftwaffe hit that they were actually aiming at, extensively damaged in December 1940. Earlier, Marconi gave the first demonstration of his new system of wireless telegraphy before members of the Post Office administration on 27 July 1897. With the transmitter on the roof of the CTO and the receiver on the roof of GPO South in Carter Lane 300 yards away (the site of Faraday Building in the poster you saw today), signals from the transmitter were satisfactorily recorded. This event is recorded by a plaque on the outside of the current BT Centre near the main entrance.
5/ Euston – one end (the other at Camden Town) of the first telegraph link (I think the world’s first), along the line of the London & Birmingham Railway, demonstrated by Cooke and Wheatstone on 25 July. In a real sense the beginning of the communications revolution, and lots of early telegraph instruments in the Science Museum if not the first one itself.
6/ Queen’s Theatre to Canterbury hall (not the UCL one, the Lambeth one?), first telephone line in the UK between two separate buildings, in 1877
7/ 36 Coleman St (site of) – building no-longer there but the site of the UK’s first telephone exchange in August 1879, opened by The Telephone Company
8/ 11 Queen Victoria Street – again no-longer there but the site of the first Edison Telephone Company Exchange from 6 Sept 1879
9/ Experimental automatic Strowger exchange exhibited at Winchester House, Old broad Street in 1897
10/ Gilbert Scott’s original model K2 telephone kiosk of 1924 which won the Post office competition for a new phone box, still standing outside the National Gallery and looks like the proper K2 kiosks installed throughout London from 1927 except that it is wooden instead of cast iron.
11/ First automatic telex exchange opened at Shoreditch exchange in 1958 (Mia wanted a Shoreditch link?)
12/ First experimental electronic exchange at Highgate Wood in 1962. We don’t seem to own the building still so need to dig around exactly where it was.
13/ World’s first digital exchange opened at Empress Exchange near Earl’s Court in September 1968. Again, not sure exactly where it is yet
What about Fleet Building Farringdon Street which was the international telex switchboard HQ for many years. A related site is http://www.lightstraw.co.uk which has interesting articles about telecoms.
I’m copying over the following suggestions from expert of television history Paul Marshall:
Paul Marshall
January 11th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Having established that ‘television’ counts as communications in this instance, I would like to add a few suggestions. This is the first offering – pre World War II addresses. It’s not exhaustive and many have *interesting* stories associated with them that would take too long to tell here.
John Logie Baird and Baird Television Ltd. (British developer of electro-mechanical television) addresses:
1. 22 Frith Street, Soho Nov. 1924 to Feb. 1926 first 30 line demonstrations.
2. Upper Floor, Motograph House, Upper St. Martin’s Lane, WC1 Feb. 1926 to Jan 1928
3. 133 Long Acre, WC2 Jan. 1928 to July 1933
4. Crystal Palace, Sydenham July 1933 Fire 30th Nov. 1936
5. Worsley Bridge Road, Sydenham, Kent (Baird Television Ltd 1938)
6. Home address: Swiss Cottage, Box Hill, Surrey. Home address from Jan. 1929.
7. Home address (and private laboratory): 3, Crescent Wood Road, from summer 1933
Scophony Ltd. (designers and manufacturers of a unique television system) addresses:
1. Dean House, Dean Street, Soho 1932 -1935
2. 2 Thornwood Lodge, Campden Hill, Kensington, W8 (Scophony 1935-40)
Marconi-EMI Ltd. (the ‘all electronic CRT based system manufacturers in Great Britain) addresses:
1. Blyth Road, Hayes, Middlesex (1934 to 1946)
BBC (adopter and broadcaster of television) addresses associated with television activities:
1. Studio BB Sub-basement, BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, W1A 1AA (1932-1935 experimental 30 line service).
2. Alexandra Palace, Wood Green, N22 (BBC ‘high definition’ transmission studios and transmitter, 1935-1939)
More to follow – post war up to about 1970 to include Television Centre and other studios/transmitters.
In more recent times we’ve had concrete and glass fibre clad buildings, from a time when telephone exchanges were still large, functional and required operators and engineers en-masse.
Baynard House – Queen Victoria Steet
“The first of the British-designed processor-controlled digital switching systems designated ‘System X’ was installed in Baynard House, London. It was a tandem junction unit which switched telephone calls between around 40 exchanges. It was brought into service on 1 July 1980 and formally inaugurated in September. The development of ‘System X’ exchanges was the linchpin of the policy to modernise the existing network by replacing analogue plant with digital switching centres interconnected with digital transmission links.”
Baynard also sports a ‘Totem Pole’ sculpture in the courtyard, depicting the ‘Seven Ages of Man’ with the suggestion that communications are never ending, evolving and encompass the very young to the very old!
Mondial House circa 1978 ( now demolished) – Upper Thames Street
This unusual stepped design of fibre glass clad concrete housed two of the UK’s largest international telephone exchanges at a time when directly dialled international calls had become technically possible, reasonably affordable, and most desirable.
36 Gerrard Street: the Electrophone company’s exchange (and – for a time – listening salon) for connecting subscribers to their choice of theatre to hear live performances and, on Sundays, to a church to hear their favourite preacher.