Enderby's Wharf is a wharf and industrial site on the south bank of the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

, London, associated with Telcon and other companies. It has a history of more than 150 years of production of submarine communication cables and associated equipment, and is one of the most important sites in the history of submarine communications.

Location

The wharf lies on the

Greenwich Peninsula The Greenwich Peninsula is an area of Greenwich in South East London, England. It is bounded on three sides by a loop of the Thames, between the Isle of Dogs to the west and Silvertown to the east. To the south is the rest of Greenwich, to the s ...

, a little to the north of the historic centre of

. It is between the Thames and the

Blackwall Tunnel The Blackwall Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels underneath the River Thames in east London, England, linking the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and part of the A102 road. The northern portal lies just south ...

approach road, across the river from

Cubitt Town Cubitt Town is a district on the eastern side of the Isle of Dogs in London, England. This part of the former Metropolitan Borough of Poplar was redeveloped as part of the Port of London in the 1840s and 1850s by William Cubitt, Lord Mayor of L ...

. It covers an area of some and has a frontage of around .

History

The wharf was first developed commercially by the whaling company of Samuel Enderby & Sons. The site was first acquired by Samuel Enderby II, with Morden College assisting in the acquisition of the naval ammunition wharf. It was Samuel Enderby III who initially developed the site along with brothers Charles and George, who acquired the site for a ropeworks. Enderbys also built Enderby House in the early 1830s, which stands today as a listed building among modern housing. In 1857 submarine cable manufacturers Glass, Elliot & Co and W.T.Henley took over the site; Henleys subsequently moved to

North Woolwich North Woolwich is an area in the London Borough of Newham in East London. It is located on the northern bank of the River Thames, across the river from Woolwich. It is connected to Woolwich by the Woolwich Ferry and Woolwich foot tunnel. De ...

. As well as jointly making the short-lived first

transatlantic telegraph cable Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data a ...

, Glass, Elliot supplied many early telegraph cables including Corsica–

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...

, Lowestoft–

Zandvoort Zandvoort () is a municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is one of the major beach resorts of the Netherlands; it has a long sandy beach. It is bordered by coastal dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland National Park and the Amsterdam ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

–

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

and

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

–

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

. In the 1860s Glass, Elliot and the Gutta Percha Company were absorbed into the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (Telcon), which manufactured a second transatlantic telegraph cable at Enderby's Wharf. This was successfully laid by the

SS Great Eastern SS ''Great Eastern'' was an iron sail-powered, paddle wheel and screw-propelled steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by John Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall Iron Works on the River Thames, London. She was the largest ship e ...

. The company went on to manufacture many more transatlantic cables, and others to Australia, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong etc. In 1935 the site came into the ownership of the newly formed Submarine Cables Ltd. Some of the cross-channel, D-Day Pluto pipeline was made at the wharf in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. After ownership by BICC and AEI, in 1970 the company passed to STC. Manufacture of submarine cable at the site ended in 1975 (transferring to Southampton), and work concentrated on manufacture of optical repeaters and amplifiers. It subsequently passed to

Northern Telecom Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...

and then to Alcatel of France in 1994. In 2006 Alcatel merged with US company

Lucent Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business u ...

to create

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a s ...

, and the following year their division based at Enderby Wharf was renamed Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, which became Alcatel Submarine Networks after Alcatel-Lucent was acquired by

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

in 2016. Around 2010, a large part of the site was sold to

Barratt Developments Barratt Developments plc is one of the largest residential property development companies in the United Kingdom operating across England, Wales and Scotland. It was founded in 1958 as Greensitt Bros., but control was later assumed by Sir ...

for a housing estate, called Enderby Wharf. Enderby House, the original office building, was within the Barratt site but stood disused for several years before being developed to become a bar and restaurant, which opened in April 2021.

Proposed cruise ship terminal

In 2010 a proposal was made to turn of the river frontage of the site not in use by

Alcatel Alcatel may refer to: * Alcatel, a former French telecommunications equipment company, which became Alcatel-Lucent and is now part of Nokia * Alcatel Mobile, a brand of mobile phones, tablets and wearables, formerly a joint venture between Alcatel ...

into a terminal for huge cruise liners, and housing. The proposal (known as 'Enderby Wharf') received planning approval from Greenwich Council in 2011, subject to approval by the Greater London Authority (GLA). Mayor

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

gave his approval to a revised application for a larger terminal in August 2015. It was expected that up to 55 large cruise ships would dock there every year. Each would need to run its diesel engines continuously to power onboard facilities, generating large polluting emissions near residential areas and schools. While London has strict regulations on air quality and emissions, they do not apply to the Thames, which is in the jurisdiction of the Port of London Authority (PLA) rather than the GLA. At the London elections in 2016 the Conservative and Labour mayoral candidates joined their Green and Liberal Democrat rivals to support the residents' campaign against the terminal. In 2018 Greenwich council changed its opinion, and called for

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

, current owner of Enderby Wharf, to implement a less polluting solution for the cruise terminal. Residents of the area proposed it should be "zero emissions", supporting ships able to use onshore electrical power without the need to run their engines while docked. Some cruise ships already support the use of shore power, while others are being adapted to do so. In 2019, Morgan Stanley sold the site to Criterion Capital for further housing development.

References

{{coord, 51.4901, 0.0055, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Port of London Industry on the River Thames Cable manufacture in London Wharves in the United Kingdom Geography of the Royal Borough of Greenwich History of the Royal Borough of Greenwich