See also NAEST 227, papers of the STC Telephone Technical Society.
Admin. history/Biography
Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd (later STC plc) was a British telephone, telegraph, radio, telecommunications and radar equipment manufacturer that operated from 1883 to 1991. During its existence STC was responsible for inventing and developing several new technologies including pulse-code modulation and fibre optics.
STC grew out of Western Electric, an American company that manufactured telephone equipment for the US company American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). Western Electric had its head offices in Chicago and a factory in Antwerp. It opened a London office in Moorgate in 1883, managed by John E Kingsbury, a friend of the head of the manufacturing factory in Antwerp and a telephone enthusiast. From this small office, Western Electric produce was sold to its main UK customer, the National Telephone Company. In 1888 Kingsbury was joined by A T Turney, of the International Bell Company in Europe. The company was moved to Coleman Street, London, and a testing shop was set up in Finsbury.
In 1898 it expanded from an office in the city of London to a warehouse in North Woolwich, producing cables and loading coils. Unfortunately the warehouse was partially destroyed by fire in 1899, but the company gained funds from Western Electric in the US to rebuild, and a new cable plant was opened in North Woolwich in 1904. This prompted an expansion into other types of manufacture and a telephone instruments factory was created by 1906. By 1908 the factory had stopped importing parts from Antwerp and was producing its own complete switchboards on site. Installation and engineering departments followed and the number of employees grew to almost 1000.
In 1912 the Post Office took over operation of the telephone service from private companies, and the London branch of Western Electric was prepared for the extra business anticipated, developing its own automatic telephone exchange. On the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 however, the facilities of Western Electric and STC were made available for military endeavour, and during the war the factories produced munitions, field telephone equipment, mine detectors and submarine detectors.
During this time the British branch of Western Electric began to move away from its American counterparts, and began to develop technologies in radio. In 1922 a site was established in New Southgate, housing the newly created Radio Department.
In 1925 International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT) took over all Western Electric’s interests outside the USA, and Western Electric Ltd in England was renamed Standard Telephone and Cables Ltd. The structure of the company was re-organised in this period, with the factories at North Woolwich being responsible for transmission, power lines and telephone lines, and New Southgate being responsible for telephone apparatus and radio. The emphasis became one of innovation, and two research laboratories were set up to help produce new developments in telecommunication. These efforts paid off, for the 1930s and 40s saw STC being responsible for a number of innovative technologies in telecommunications. The capacity of telephone cables was increased by transmitting more than one channel over a pair of wires, and in 1931 STC gave a public demonstration of ‘Micro-ray’ (later termed microwave) communication between Dover and Calais.
During the Second World War STC concentrated on producing military radar and radio navigation equipment, bomb guidance devices and ground-controlled landing systems.
After the war, STC returned to civilian manufacture, and became involved with the development of television, installing a coaxial cable link between London and Birmingham for relaying programmes to the Sutton Coldfield transmitter, and put the first portable microwave links on trial, which were later used to transmit the first outside television broadcast. For the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, STC provided a travelling wave tube amplifier.
Demand for a worldwide telephone service in the 1950s saw STC becoming involved in the production and installation of transatlantic submarine telephone cables, with the first system, TAT-1, linking Newfoundland with the UK, officially being opened in 1956.
The 1960s saw the onset of the digitisation of telecommunications, with valve amplifiers gradually being replaced with transistors, allowing the practical use of pulse code modulation to become a possibility. The invention of fibre optic cables in 1966 by Charles Kao and George Hockman in the STC laboratories in Harlow furthered this, as it allowed data to be carried along cables with a greatly increased potential capacity. The 1970s at STC were dominated by efforts to improve optical technologies and by the 1980s it was being used commercially in a wide variety of applications.
The 1970s also saw the introduction of the electronic telephone exchange, with STC’s exchange, TXE4, being adopted as the model for UK exchange systems.
The growth of digital technology had an impact on the strategy and structure of STC as a company. In the early 1970s it phased out its radio operations, and closed its factory in North Woolwich.
In 1979, ITT, the US company that owned STC, sold 15% of its shares in the company. For this purpose ITT’s UK components, business systems, research laboratories and electrical wholesaling operations were brought into the corporate entity. In 1982 ITT released a further 50% of shares, and STC became a British company. Following this STC entered a period of decline, with a failed attempt to enter the mainframe computer market. Growing financial problems led to the company being bought out in 1991 by Northern Telecom (Nortel).
Nortel was a Canadian telecommunications equipment manufacturing company that was founded in 1882 as a subsidiary of Bell Telephone Company of Canada. In January 2009 it filed for bankruptcy protection and in June 2009 it sold off all its assets, including STC.
