World-Wide Communication

Booklet on Cable and Wireless Ltd and the British Commonwealth global communications system, 1954, 40 pages with a map in the centre. The booklet was aimed at Cable and Wireless company staff. In 1954 the company employed 'men and women of more than 50 different races. 600 of the Company's staff are serving in the United Kingdom; 7,500 overseas and 700 afloat in the cable ships.' Cable and Wireless has its origins in the 1860s with a numer of British telegraph companies. In 1928 the radio and telegraph networks that operated across the British Empire were merged to form the 'Imperial and International Communications' company, which became Cable and Wireless in 1934. The company was nationalised in 1947, but it was subsquently privatised in 1981.