HISTORY OF THE BRITISH WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY - LONDON

COMPANY HISTORY

The British Western Electric Company (BWE) were makers of vulcanised electric light wires and cables, of Norfolk House, Victoria Embankment, London, WC (in 1918) and Bush House, Aldwych, London, WC2 (in 1935).

1882 The Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company was renamed as Western Electric.

1882 A joint venture between the Bell Company and Western Electric formed a company called the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company (BTMC) and they opened a factory in Antwerp, Belgium.  The London operation sold US-designed telephones and exchanges to fledgling British telephone companies.

1883 The British Western Electric Company was established as a London agent for the US Western Electric Company selling telephones and exchanges to telephone companies in the United Kingdom.

1898 The failing cable factory, owned by the Fowler-Waring Cables Company, at North Woolwich in London's East End, was acquired. Despite setbacks, this factory made lead-sheathed cables and also assembled equipment from components imported from Belgium and the United States.  The plant was rebuilt in 1904 and the company then moved into complete manufacture as well and started making telephones from imported parts.  By 1908 complete switchboards were also being made at the plant.

1890 The Bell Company sold it's share of BTMC to Western Electric.

1901 Western Electric becomes exclusive supplier, purchaser, and distributor for AT&T and its subsidiaries, organised as the Bell System.

1903 The National Telephone Company (NTC) stopped buying BWE telephones and signed a contract with L.M. Ericsson.  By then the Bell patents had expired.  The Western Electric factory at Woolwich now concentrated on supplying phones, cable and switchboards to the British Post Office and the British colonies, but they also supplied switchboards to the NTC.

1906 The company installed the Post Office's first coin-operated call box at Ludgate Circus, London.

1910 Incorporated as a limited company to take over a business which had already been trading for some years. It was then a wholly-owned subsidiary of the International Western Electric Co. of the U.S.A. and called the Western Electric Co. Ltd.

1910 Using advanced American thinking and designs, after incorporation as a British legal entity, Western Electric's future looked bright.

1914 The Post Office installed a Western Electric Company rotary-type automatic telephone exchange at Darlington.  It was similar to the Lorimer system in the use of power-driven selector switches but included a device to receive the subscriber's signals from a rotary ten hole dial and to store them for subsequent control of the switches^.

1914 Manufacturers of and dealers in telephone, electric light and power cable, telephone apparatus etc.

During World War 1 the company contributed to the war effort in military communications and the (then primitive) cable and wireless technologies they used.  Radio technology was being initiated in the neutral USA.  This gave Western Electric a post-war advantage as wireless broadcasting was introduced in Britain.

1916 Another telephone exchange was installed at Dudley.  In 1922, the Post Office adopted the Strowger system as its standard and the rotary-system was not deployed further on the network.

1918 The International Western Electric Company Inc. was formed.

1920s The company was closely involved in wireless broadcasting (radio).

1921 Patent relating to electrical connectors.

1922 Appointed Lionel Robinson and Co for their B.A.G. diffusers.

1922 The company had outgrown the North Woolwich factory and a large factory site with its own railway siding was purchased in Oakleigh Road, New Southgate in 1922.  This site was several acres in size and this allowed for great expansion in the next few years and beyond.  Here in the following year, radio sets were manufactured as well as horn speakers and other radio equipment. There was also a tube making department.

1922 The Western Electric Co. was one of 6 companies (Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co, Radio Communication Co, Metropolitan-Vickers, General Electric and British Thomson-Houston) that set up the British Broadcasting Company.  Valve technology was developed and commercially exploited.

1923 Around this year the company started the manufacture of valves and radio sets.

1925 Western Electrics international operations, the International Western Electric Company with factories in Woolwich, Antwerp and Paris, were acquired by the ITT corporation.  These interests were transferred to the International Standard Electric Corporation of New York.  The British subsidiary's name was changed to Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd.

Last revised: May 15, 2026