GLOBE TELEGRAPH AND TRUST COMPANY LIMITED - AIM25

Identity area

Reference code

GB 0074 CLC/B/101

Title

GLOBE TELEGRAPH AND TRUST COMPANY LIMITED

Date(s)

1717-1980 (Creation)

Level of description

Collection

Extent and medium

729 production units.

Context area

Name of creator

Various.

Biographical history

Globe Telegraph and Trust Company Limited was incorporated in 1873 by John Pender, a Liberal MP, who also founded the Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies Group. Globe was formed in order to spread the short term risk of cable laying over a number of companies, and shares in Globe were offered in exchange for shares in submarine telegraph and associated companies. The Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies Group, meanwhile, was built up by Pender over a number of years in the late 19th century, as described below.

MEDITERRANEAN AND INDIA. 1869: British Indian Submarine Telegraph Company Limited was formed to lay a cable from Bombay to Suez and thence to Alexandria and to Malta; and Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Company Limited was formed to complete the chain to England with cables via Gibraltar and Portugal. 1872: British Indian Submarine; Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta; Marseilles, Algiers and Malta (formed 1870); and Anglo-Mediterranean (formed 1868) telegraph companies were amalgamated by Pender to form Eastern Telegraph Company Limited.

THE FAR EAST. 1869: British Indian Extension Telegraph Company Limited was formed to lay a cable from Madras to Penang and on to Singapore. 1870: British Australian Telegraph Company Limited was formed to bring Australia within the ambit of submarine telegraph communication with Britain and laid a cable from Singapore to Java and on to Australia. 1869: Pender had meantime formed China Submarine Telegraph Company Limited to extend the cable from Singapore to Hong Kong via Saigon. 1873: Pender amalgamated the above three far eastern companies into Eastern Extension, Australasia and China Telegraph Company Limited which, with Eastern Telegraph Company Limited, formed the nucleus of the Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies Group.

SOUTH AMERICA. 1865: River Plate Telegraph Company Limited was formed, with a head office in Scotland, to lay a cable across the mouth of the River Plate and operate a telegraph service between Argentina and Uruguay. 1872: Companhia Telegrafica Platino Brasileira was incorporated in Brazil, but reformed in England in 1878, as London Platino Brazilian Telegraph Company Limited and became part of the Eastern Group. 1892: Pacific and European Telegraph Company Limited was formed to compete with South American telegraph companies which connected the main Brazilian ports with each other and with Europe.

AFRICA: 1879: Eastern and South African Telegraph Company Limited was formed to lay cables up the east coast of Africa from Durban to Aden where they would join Eastern Telegraph Company's main line system. 1885: West African Telegraph Company Limited was formed to lay cables along the west coast of Africa and connect them with, in the main, foreign government systems. 1885: African Direct Telegraph Company Limited was formed to link the main British ports on the west coast of Africa with each other and with England. 1889: Eastern and South African, West African and African Direct all became part of the Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies Group.

AZORES. 1893: Europe and Azores Telegraph Company Limited was formed under the aegis of the Eastern Group to lay a cable from Lisbon to the Azores.

By the turn of the century, therefore, the Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies Group possessed a virtual monopoly of worldwide communication by telegraph cable. However, from this time on, cable communication came increasingly into competition with wireless telegraphy, chiefly in the form of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Limited.

In 1928 the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference recommended that the overseas cable and wireless resources of the British Empire be merged into one system. As a result Cable and Wireless Limited (known from 1934 as Cable and Wireless (Holding) Limited) was formed in 1929 to acquire the shares of both the Eastern Group and the Marconi company, and Imperial and International Communications Limited (known from 1934 as Cable and Wireless Limited) was formed also in 1929 to acquire the communications assets of both the Eastern Group and the Marconi company.

In 1935 Globe Telegraph and Trust Company Limited acquired Cables Investment Trust Limited as a subsidiary. In 1946, when Cable and Wireless was nationalised, Globe owned a third of Cable and Wireless (Holding) Limited which was converted into an investment trust. It was renamed in 1971 as Cable Trust Limited. Since 1948 Globe and its associates have been concerned chiefly with general investment business, and in 1969 Globe was renamed as Globe Investment Trust Limited. In 1977 it merged with Cable Trust Limited.

Globe and the associated telegraph companies had offices at Winchester House, Old Broad Street until 1902; Electra House, Moorgate, until 1933; then Electra House, Temple Place, Victoria Embankment (more recently known as Globe House). Cable and Wireless shared accommodation with Globe until 1955 when Cable and Wireless moved to Mercury House, Theobalds Road, WC1.

Repository

The London Archives

Archival history

GB 0074 CLC/B/101 1717-1980 Collection 729 production units. Various.