Hoopers Telegraph and India-Rubber Works
of 31 Lombard Street, London, EC
1845 William Hooper, a chemist, set up a factory around 1845 in Mitcham, Surrey, to produce rubber goods mostly for the medical profession. He experimented with rubber insulation for electric cables and eventually found a way of insulating cables in a continuous process.
c.1857 or later: The Indian Government placed Hooper's first order, followed by another order for cable to link India and Ceylon. W. T. Henley carried out the armouring of the cable.
1860 Company established by William Hooper trading under his own name.
1870 Hooper formed Hooper's Telegraph Works Ltd. to undertake both manufacture and laying of submarine cables. The first order for the new company was from the Great Northern Telegraph Co for a cable connecting Vladivostock to Hong Kong; Siemens Brothers and Co carried out the armouring of this cable.
1873 Hooper's laid the cable (which had been made for an Atlantic crossing) off the east coast of South America, having been offered this concession by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Co on the condition that Hooper's dropped their plans for a transatlantic cable.
1877 the company went into liquidation and for a time operated as a private company. Works at Mitcham, Millwall and West Ham[1]. Shortly after this Hooper died.
1894 Incorporated as a limited company under the name Hoopers Telegraph and India-Rubber Works Ltd
1914 Manufacturers of telegraph cables. Specialities: submarine and subterranean telegraph cables, telephone cables, Hooper's core and insulated wire for electric light, Indiarubber sheet and tape (pure or vulcanised), jointing materials for electric light wires, lead-covered and armoured electric light wires and cables[2]
1933 Rubber manufacturer, of King William St, London[3]
1953 Company in liquidation[4]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ London Gazette 26 June 1877
- ↑ 1914 Whitakers Red Book
- ↑ The Times, Mar 13, 1933
- ↑ London Gazette 27 October 1953