Siemens Brothers and Company Limited was an electrical engineering design and manufacturing business in London, England. It was first established as a branchThe company started with a small factory at 12 Millbank Row, Westminster SW1, London, near the site of Lambeth Bridge in 1858 by a brother of the founder of the German electrical engineering firm Siemens & Halske. The principal works were at Woolwich where cables and light-current electrical apparatus were produced from 1863 until 1968. The site between the Thames Barrier and Woolwich Dockyard has retained several buildings of historic interest.Saint & Guillery, The Survey of London vol. 48: Woolwich, Yale, 2012 (online PDF, pp. 44-53).Siemens Woolwich site notes, on greenwichindustrialhistory.blogspot.co.uk (including a map of all buildings and their year of completion). New works were built at Stafford in 1903 and Dalston in 1908.
During World War I Siemens Brothers was bought by a British consortium because most of its ownership was in the hands of enemy aliens; see Graces Guide to British Industrial History.
Siemens Brothers and Company Limited was bought by Associated Electrical Industries in 1955. At that time its business was described as follows: manufacture sale and installation of submarine and land cables, overhead telegraph, telephone and power transmission lines, public and private telephone exchanges and carrier transmission equipment for telephone lines and marine radio and signalling equipment. Through subsidiaries it was engaged in the manufacture of lamps of all kinds, miscellaneous electrical equipment and electrical railway signals.letter from directors to the company's shareholders re AEI offer, December 1954
The Siemens family The German Siemens brothers came from a highly educated upper-middle-class family in relatively humble economic circumstances. Their father farmed a leased estate. The elder brothers of the family were born in the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1823, the year William (Wilhelm) was born, the family moved to the Baltic coast, near Lübeck. Both parents had died by the time William was 17.Christian Ferdinand Siemens (1787-1840), known as Ferdinand, born in Wasserleben, married Eleonore Deichmann (1793-1839). Their children were: Ludwig Siemens (1812–1871), Matilde (1814–1878; married to Carl Himly, professor of chemistry at the University of Göttingen), Werner Siemens (1815–1815), Ernst Werner von Siemens (1816–1892), Hans Dietrich Siemens (1818–1867; ran the Dresden glassworks), Ferdinand Julius Siemens (1820–1893; farmed a large estate in Königsberg, East Prussia), Sophie Henriette (1821–1821), William Siemens (1823–1883), Friedrich August Siemens (1826–1904; “The Dresden Siemens” who revolutionised the industry and became Europe's largest glass manufacturer), Carl Heinrich von Siemens (1829–1906), Franz Siemens (1831–1840), Walter Siemens (1832–1868; Prussian consul at Tiflis, laying the Indo-European cable), Sophie Siemens (1834–1922; married to Dr Carl Crome of Lübeck), and Otto Siemens (1836–1871; North German consul at Tiflis). William Pole: The Life of Sir William Siemens, Murray, London 1888. Sir William Siemens (1823–1883), the fourth of eight surviving sons in the family, his primary interests were in electric telegraphing and lighting; founder of Siemens Brothers in the UK Ernst Werner von Siemens (1816–1892), Sir William's elder brother; founder of Siemens & Halske Carl Heinrich von Siemens (1829–1906) was another brother who opened a branch office in Saint Petersburg in 1853, then joined William in London in 1869 but in the 1880s returned first to Russia then Berlin to become the head of Siemens & Halske after the death of Ernst Werner Siemens Alexander Siemens (1847–1928) was a distant cousin who joined William in Woolwich in 1867. He was adopted by the childless Sir William and his wife and he too became a naturalised British subject. Managing director from 1889 to 1899 he remained on the board until he retired in 1918, aged 70.Brian Bowers, ‘Siemens, Alexander (1847–1928)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
Profit distribution between the brothers, it reflects contribution not just ownership. Werner William CarlBerlinLondonPetersburg
Siemens & Halske, 1858-1865 On 1 October 1858, the German firm Siemens & Halske established an English firm, Siemens & Halske & Company, a partnership of William Siemens, cable manufacturer R S Newall of Gateshead and Siemens & Halske of Berlin. Its purpose was to help lay Newall's newly developed submarine communications cable. The London branch was under the control of William, later Sir William Siemens, formerly known as Carl Wilhelm Siemens (1823–1883). Hanover-born Sir William went to England in 1843The Kingdom of Hanover was in personal union with the United Kingdom until 1837 and a link remained until annexation by Prussia in 1866 to sell a patent he shared with his brother Werner. He found employment in Birmingham with engineers Fox, Henderson & Co and became a naturalised British subject in 1859, the same day as he married the daughter of an Edinburgh lawyer. Her brother was Lewis Gordon business partner of R S Newall. During the 1850s Sir William developed the Siemens regenerative furnace.H. T. Wood, ‘Siemens, Sir (Charles) William (1823–1883)’, rev. Brian Bowers, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
Following various failures in Newall's installed cables the link with them was dropped at the end of 1860.Christina Lubinski, Jeffrey Fear, Paloma Fernández Pérez (editors) Family Multinationals: Entrepreneurship, Governance, and Pathways to Internationalization, Routledge, 2013.
In 1865 Johann Georg Halske, partner in Siemens & Halske, withdrew from the English branch following failures in the London firm's work so then it became Siemens Brothers.
Siemens Brothers Telegraph Works
Submarine cables Siemens Brothers Telegraph Works opened as a new cable factory in Woolwich, London in 1863. It expanded to cover over 6 acres and employed more than 2,000 people. In 1869 the London and Berlin firms jointly made and laid a telegraph line from Prussia to Teheran which formed a principal part of the direct line from England to India, 2,750 miles. Principal cables made and laid by Siemens Brothers between 1873 and 1883: In 1874-5 the London firm alone completed the first direct Atlantic cable, known as the DUS (Direct United States Cable Company), to USA. In 1876 a direct Paris-New York cable was discussed in France. In March 1879 Siemens Brothers was given the order by banker Pouyer-Quertier. They finished making the PQ cable at Woolwich in the middle of June when the Faraday set out to do the laying under the control of Ludwig Loeffler. The main cable was handed over to the owners in little more than four months. Neither France nor USA had a cable-making factory. 1881 Western Union England to Nova Scotia north cable 1882 Western Union England to Nova Scotia south cable
The construction and laying of cables remained the firm's main occupation until Sir William's death in 1883.J D Scott, Siemens Brothers 1858–1958, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1958The principal rivals were: Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company Limited India-Rubber, Gutta-Percha & Telegraph Works Company Limited W T Henley's Telegraph Works Company Limited Hooper's Telegraph Works Company Limited J D Scott, Siemens Brothers 1858–1958, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1958 Following his death shares were offered, somewhat unwillingly, to London manager Johann Carl Ludwig Loeffler (1831–1906) to retain his services. He managed to increase his holding to 25% but there were disagreements as to how the firm was run and Alexander Siemens, William's adopted son, replaced Loeffler in 1888. Werner bought Loeffler's shareholding. Loeffler died in the Tyrol 18 years later leaving an estate in excess of £1.5 million, he was a prominent investor in West Australian mines.Wills.-Mr. Johann Carl Ludwig Loeffler The Times, Friday, January 4, 1907; pg. 8; Issue 38221
Heavy-current products The invention of the dynamo in 1867 led to a switch from Siemens' previous strength in light-current products to heavy-current products and processes. The world's first modern high-voltage power station was opened in 1891, Deptford East. Designed in 1887 by 23-year-old former Siemens' apprentice Sebastian de Ferranti it was erected by the London Electricity Supply Corporation on the Thames bank at Deptford Creek, two and a half miles west of Siemens' Woolwich site. Berlin was anxious that the London business should break its reliance on the submarine cable business. The London County Council discouraged that kind of development and after considering other locations Stafford was settled on. 500 acres of freehold land were purchased there in 1900 and building began in 1901.
Following the invention of the arc lamps, their manufacture was taken up by Siemens Brothers.
Reorganisations In December 1880 a limited liability company was formed to own the firm and it was named Siemens Brothers and Company Limited.New Capital Issues. The Times, Wednesday, November 17, 1920; pg. 21; Issue 42570 There were just seven shareholders, the legal minimum. All except Loeffler were family members. William was chairman and Loeffler managing director.
In 1899, the Siemens family bought back all shares not held by family members.
By 1900 Siemens Brothers had constructed and laid seven North Atlantic cablesCharles Bright, Submarine Telegraphs, London, Crosby Lockwood, 1898
Stafford and Dalston sites In 1903, with Nuremberg's Elektrizitäts-Aktiengesellschaft vormals Schuckert & Co or E.-AG, they formed a new entity, Siemens-Schuckertwerke, to hold all their jointly owned heavy-current operations. The first step in England was to build a new factory in Stafford for heavy-current business. In 1906 Siemens-Schuckertwerke leased the Stafford factory, formed a company to operate it and called the company Siemens Brothers Dynamo Works Limited.
In November 1919 it was announced by English Electric that they had bought the Siemens works at Stafford (Siemens Brothers Dynamo Works Limited and its attendant sales and engineering organisation) and had entered into "a working agreement with Siemens Brothers and Co for the preferential exchange of the special products of each company".City News in Brief. The Times, Saturday, November 15, 1919; pg. 19; Issue 42258
In 1908, Siemens Brothers Dynamo Works Limited opened a metal filament lamp factory in rented premises at Tyssen Street, Dalston, London.Industrial Notes. The Times, Wednesday, June 9, 1909; pg. 18; Issue 38981 In 1919 its capacity was 2.5 million lamps per annum but advances in technology left its products unwanted and the Dalston factory closed in 1923.
Around World War I
In 1911 the company was doing well and several new buildings went up at the Woolwich site. An L-shaped five-storey building, used for making rubber-coated copper-wire cable, was among the largest factories in London when built. Also in 1911, a new office building went up in the same plain brick style. Just before World War I, Siemens had more employees in Britain than in Germany (around 10,000).The rush to invest in the British economy. Simon Scott Plummer. The Times, Tuesday, July 1, 1986; pg. 32; Issue 62497