Dept. Electra House - Electra House, Victoria Embankment
The original Electra House, at Moorgate, London, was opened in 1902 and became the accommodation for the Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies. Housed in two rooms in the basement was the company’s London training school. In 1933 the administrative centre of the company was then transferred to a new building on the Victoria Embankment, which had been opened on May 11th. by Mrs. John Cuthbert Denison-Pender. This building served as the administrative headquarters for Imperial and International Communications, which in the following year became Cable and Wireless Ltd. In addition, the building was also the alternative terminal for the nations main cable system overseas.
In 1944 Electra House was hit by a V1, which destroyed the Chairman's flat.
The centre of operations remained at Moorgate until this was bombed during the war, when the duties were transferred to Electra House, Embankment.
Supposedly gas proof and bomb proof, the building was hit by a V1, which destroyed the Chairman’s flat. Nevertheless, emergency power ensured that all the circuits were kept working. At the beginning of the war Cable and Wireless operated 155,000 of the 350,000 miles of cable that spanned the globe and also ran around 130 of the permanent wireless circuits. As with other cable operators, from 1920 they had been compelled by the Official Secrets Act to supply copies of all the traffic to the Government, for investigation by G.C. & C.S. For this reason
Electra House, Embankment, had a secondary purpose, for secret conduits were laid to here from the Central Telegraph Exchange at Moorgate, which monitored the telephone lines of every foreign embassy in London. If Moorgate was damaged, then Electra House, which accommodated a staff of one hundred cable sensors, could take over.