India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Co., Ltd.
1O6 Cannon St., London, EC.

Brand: Silvertown

Manufacturer of cables and Silvertown brand telegraph components, radio components, and rubber products in London, Silvertown.

Note: the company marketed under the alternative names of  Silvertown Co. & Silvertown Telegraph Co.

S.W. Silver & Company had been doing business since the 18th century supplying colonial and army needs for clothing and acting as shipping agents for personnel traveling overseas. After Charles Macintosh developed waterproofing for fabric the company set up a factory in Greenwich for the manufacture of such goods.
After that factory began manufacture of insulated wire and cable the factory was moved across the Thames to North Woolwich and continued to expand with much of the local population employed in the works and the area becoming known as Silvertown.

Before becoming a limited company, the manufacture of cable had been restricted to relatively short segments of the cable and core (the conductor and inner insulation).  Silver's sons, Stephen William Silver and Hugh Adams Silver took over and expanded the business and began more work with submarine cable insulation becoming 1863 Silver’s India Rubber Works & Telegraph Cable Company, Limited. In 1864 Charles Hancock merged his West Ham Gutta Percha Company into Silver's company to form the India Rubber, Gutta Percha, and Telegraph Works Company.

In 1865, the first cable manufactured and laid by the company was for the Submarine Telegraph Co., running from Dover to Cap Gris Nez. The company subsequently became active in promoting Telegraph companies and in 1870 they set up the West India and Panama Telegraph Company, the Cuba Submarine Telegraph Company, and the Panama and South Pacific Telegraph Company. [1]

They manufactured the Leclanché batteries in 1874.

As well as cable and telegraph equipment manufacture the company also supplied electric generating plants to towns and cities in the UK and Europe. In the 1890s they began producing bicycle tyres and later car tyres.

By 1923 the works employed 4000 people and covered an area of 17 acres. In addition, they had factories in Burton on Trent, and France.

The company began experiencing financial difficulties in 1927 and in 1933 the British Goodrich Rubber Co. acquired a controlling interest in the company. [2]

[1] History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy - British Cable Manufacturers. Glover, Bill.
[2] Wikipedia accessed August 2023