Today, we live in a world where we take mobile phones, satellite television and electricity at the flick of a switch for granted. No such luxuries for William Thomas Henley, who was born in Midhurst in Sussex in 1814 and who laid the foundations of AEI Cables as we know it today.

Henley’s career began as a light porter in Cheapside, London. History tells us that he wasn't the easiest person to get along with. Arguments ensued with his boss until finally he left. Next, he took a job at St Katherine Docks, which lasted for six years.

William Thomas Henley
1814 - 1882

During that time, he resolved to learn a trade. Using money given to him by one of his aunt’s he invested in the purchase of an old lathe and a vice and with what was left over he bought some timber, which he turned into a cabinet-makers bench. With the lathe, he taught himself turning in wood and brass, whilst some of the money he earned as a docker funded his desire to experiment. Within three years, he had taught himself a lot about electricity and magnetism, optics, chemistry, mechanics and the laws of motion, as well as having become something of a handyman.

Now Henley had begun to manufacture electrical apparatus for a chemist who owned a shop in East London and who also allowed him to display things in his shop window. Business began to boom and although popular with his colleagues Henley wanted to be his own boss and so left the docks to pursue manufacturing full time. By now the year was probably 1836.

One of Henley’s best customers was Mr J.P. Gassiot, Chairman of the London and Westminster Bank and a keen amateur scientist. Among Gassiot's friends at the time were Michael Faraday and William Sturgeon. Gassiot recommended Henley to Professor Daniell (Professor of Chemistry) and Professor Wheatstone (Professor of experimental physics) who were based at King’s College.

Henley was the ‘intelligent mechanic’ whom Wheatstone recommended to William Henry Fox Talbot the photography pioneer and with whom Henley worked for a while. Henley was now seeing his electrical apparatus business soar and soon moved to new premises in Whitechapel, taking on his first employee to help.

Wire covered with Silk and Cotton was increasingly in demand for electromagnetic apparatus and Henley in order to capitalise on the increasing demand converted his old lathe into a wire covering machine. This machine can still be seen today at the London Science Museum. Despite the somewhat crude nature of this ‘machine’ it was actually a stroke of genius and contributed much to Henley’s initial success.

Henley continued making instruments for Wheatstone up until the time that the patent rights were sold to the Electric Telegraph Company (ETC) in 1846. By now, he was employing 23 people and albeit reluctantly and found himself having to manage the business rather than be quite so ‘hands on’.

Soon, Henley was manufacturing and installing long lengths of Telegraph Cable. Some of his early notable achievements included The City of London to Manchester, Dublin to Belfast and Liverpool to Manchester.

Artists impression - Laying the
Persian Gulf Cable at Fao, Persian
Gulf. July 8th 1863.

By the mid 1850’s, substantial land telegraph links existed in many countries and future growth depended to a large degree on linking the land networks by Submarine Telegraph Cable. Thus, the scene was set for an explosion in the cable making industry. Henley set up as a submarine cable maker in 1857 and by 1859 he had his own factory beside the Thames at North Woolwich.

He went on to manufacture the shore ends of the Trans-Atlantic cable in 1865 and generally helped lay the foundations of modern communication as we know it today. Henley died in 1882 but his legacy went on and the company known worldwide today would not be what it is without his sterling efforts.

The company AEI Cables originated as Associated Electrical Industries Limited (AEI) in 1929 and began as a financial holding company for a number of leading electrical manufacturing and trading companies in the UK.

These included British Thomson-Houston, Metropolitan-Vickers, Edison Swann and Ferguson Pailin. As the diversity and extent of AEI’s products expanded the company was joined by Sunvic Controls (1949), Birlec (1954), Siemens Brothers (1955), W.T. Henley (1958) and London Electric Wire Company & Smiths (1958). In 1959 AEI became a trading company and the AEI symbol began to replace the brand names and trademarks of companies within the group (except Lewcos and Birlec).

Sir Felix Pole had been chairman of AEI since its foundation. His years as chairman proved difficult as he was head of a company which lacked solidarity, especially regarding its activities and board of directors. One of Pole's primary concerns was the competition between British Thomson-Houston and Metropolitan Vickers.

Such rivalry had been present before the merger with AEI in 1928 and was to continue long after. The slump of the 1930s was to significantly affect AEI and measures were taken by the company to reduce the cost of administration. The subsidiary companies of B.T.H. and Metrovick were large exporters during the recession. One notable activity of Metrovick, begun in 1922, was the export of electrical apparatus and machinery to the recently established Soviet regime.

This association ended in controversy in 1933 when six Metrovick engineers were tried in Moscow on spying and sabotage charges. Intervention from the British Government resolved the affair and trading with Russia eventually resumed.

If the depression of the 1930s had affected AEI unfavourably, then the Second World War proved economically beneficial for the company. AEI’s productive competence was thoroughly tested as the War progressed. Many factories worked seven-day weeks. The most beneficial aspect for AEI was that it was primarily a war of scientific growth and innovation.

The company’s electrical engineering products assisted the Government's military projects during the 1930s. Significant contributions to the war effort included automatic pilots for aircraft , radar, guns and gun mountings. However the continuing competition within AEI was underlined by the fact that B.T.H. and Metrovick published separate books detailing their contribution to the war effort.

The Birtley factory
which opened in 1950.

AEI’s technical excellence was highlighted in 1935 as Metrovick and B.T.H. became the first two firms in the world to construct jet engines (independently from each other). AEI’s greatest work during the War years was its aircraft. In 1938, Metrovick entered into a joint venture with A.V. Roe to manufacture aircraft. Metrovick assembled 'Manchester', 'Lancaster' and 'Lincoln' bombers for A.V. Roe at Trafford Park.

At the end of the War in 1945 Sir Felix Pole, now blind, who had been chairman of AEI since 1929, was thought to be too old to lead the company into the anticipated post-war boom in electrical equipment.

A successor was to be chosen from outside the company with the resulting appointment of Captain Oliver Lyttelton in the autumn of 1945. His major policy was to reinforce the ‘higher direction’ of AEI. Uppermost on his agenda was to improve the productivity and "organise the company along modern lines".

Lyttelton managed to transform the holding company itself into a more proficient organisation during his first six years as chairman (1945-1951). The Conservative victory in the general election of 1951 resulted in Lyttelton receiving the post of Secretary of State for the Colonies. In his absence, Sir George Bailey was appointed Chairman. During his three years in charge, Bailey expanded the company’s sales and profits, his main achievement was ending the association with G.E. of America, turning AEI into an entirely British company.

In 1954 Oliver Lyttelton returned to AEI as the first Viscount Chandos of Aldershot. Lord Chandos was regarded as an expansionist who was to dominate AEI for a further nine years. He became Chairman of the four groups - B.T.H., Metrovick, Ediswan-Hotpoint and AEI Overseas. Under Lord Chandos the company moved its headquarters to 33 Grosvenor Place, Belgravia, overlooking Buckingham Palace. The most successful achievement of Chandos’ second reign was at Larne in Northern Ireland with the completion of a vast works (the largest in Europe) for constructing turbines.

During the mid-1950s AEI was to focus primarily upon domestic appliances and lighter engineering products. The company discontinued its production of valves and cathode ray tubes and in 1961 merged with Thorn allowing the latter to manage its interests. AEI purchased Siemens in 1955 thus owning four independent lamp businesses: B.T.H., Ediswan, Metrovick and Siemens. In subsequently dropping these names AEI’s lamp business suffered badly.

Thus AEI formed a joint company with Thorn again in 1964 and another with EMI in 1966 allowing these companies to manage its domestic appliance businesses. 1959 proved to be a boom year for domestic appliances. Hotpoint, which had been made a separate group in 1955 with Craig Wood as chairman, helped to contribute to AEI’s success in this field.

The greatest challenge faced by Lord Chandos, which had also plagued Sir Felix Pole, was the restructuring of AEI’s governing and functioning structures. His policy for AEI was designed to mobilise the company’s huge assets more effectively and to become more commanding in the markets.

After several attempts at revitalisation, Lord Chandos was still unable to prevent the eventual unprofitability of AEI and its organisational problems. The years 1960-1963 were particularly bad for him and the company as the serious problem of "overlapping and competition between the constituent companies" was never overcome.

Lord Chandos left AEI in March 1963, aged 70. He had contributed greatly to the company’s ascent since the end of the war and, like Hugo Hirst of GEC, believed in the policy of ‘Everything Electrical’. The legacy he wished to leave for his successors was one of a "streamlined company" which would "survive and prosper in the highly competitive world" which challenged it.

The two men who were to dominate the Company until 1967 were Sir Charles (‘Mike’) Wheeler and Sir Joseph Latham. In 1964 the Company’s problems were focused upon in a paper entitled ‘The State of the Company’. The Wheeler-Latham regime set about altering the hierarchical structure of the company but progress was minimal. During the first two years of the Wheeler-Latham reign, profits were encouraging but it was the disastrous year of 1966 which was to bear more significance.

In 1953, AEI acquired Siemens Bros., taking over the Liverpool Electric Cables Company in 1958 and Henleys a year later. These cable companies were integrated as the AEI Cable Division, re-organised in 1960 into four product groups. In 1967 the General Electric Company took over AEI Cables and Hackbridge Cables Co., culminating in the formation of AEI Cables Ltd in 1968. In 1982 production of Mineral Insulated Cables also started at AEI's Cables Bootle factory in Merseyside.

The company had been in need of drastic revitalisation and needed decisive action by the people at the top. In 1967 GEC’s Arnold Weinstock and the chairman of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, Ronnie Grierson, proposed an instant solution to the company’s problems. This was to culminate in the historic £120 million bid by GEC for AEI, resulting in the merger on Thursday, November 9th, 1967.

Today, AEI Cables is an industry leader focused on its manufacturing facilities at Birtley in Co Durham. Here, we specialise in the design and manufacture of elastomeric and thermoplastic cables for voltages up to 20kV. These include high performance PTFE and ETFE thinwall cables and wires, the Transcab range of Rail Transportation System cables and the Firetec fire performance cable range.

In 2007, the company became part of Paramount Communications Ltd, one of India’s largest cable manufacturers which has developed a wide variety of specialized cables and wires for diversified uses.

It is the only Indian cable company to offer a comprehensive range of cables needed by all sectors of the economy including power and electricity, thermal and nuclear power plants, space research, railways, telecommunications, oil and natural gas, petrochemicals, fertilizers, steel and electronics.

Paramount Communications puts strong emphasis on keeping abreast with the latest international developments, focusing and adapting technology to create multi-faceted, need-based products for utilization in various spheres of industrial activity.

Proud of its past and excited by the future, AEI Cables has evolved into a modern, go-ahead cable manufacturer for today’s global business environment with its focus firmly on its customers and prospective customers.