We take the internet and international telephone calls for granted. We can talk, email, share photos and videos with friends and associates in New York, Cape Town, Mumbai, Caracas, almost anywhere.
It started on the Greenwich riverside at Enderby wharf. A technical revolution here 160 years ago gave us the ability to communicate across the world in real time.
Enderby Wharf retains its connections to the communications industry. On the jetty equipment from the 1950s, used to load cable on to the ships which laid it under the seas, still stands. At the back of the site, behind new housing, relay equipment for the undersea cable is still made. And Enderby House, built in the 1840s, briefly a meeting place for the newly-formed Geographic Society and for many years offices for the succession of companies making cable and associated equipment here, also still stands.
Enderby House, though, is in poor condition and, although listed Grade II and with a developer committed to its retention and extension, has no defined future role.
The Enderby Group, creators of this website, are concerned to ensure that it will be fully rehabilitated and will play a part in the telling of the history of the undersea cable and of the many other significant industrial innovations which have taken place on the Greenwich peninsula – and of the people who made them happen.
On this website you will find more about the history of Enderby Wharf and Enderby House, about the Enderby family and the cable industry which has been here since they left. You will find details if the Enderby Group and its activities, news of relevant events and actions, and suggestions as to how, if you want, you can help the work of the Group.
ENDERBY WHARF 