The India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company

The India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company was a London-based company based in Silvertown, East London. It was founded by Stephen William Silver in March 1864 as Silver's Indiarubber Works and Telegraph Cable Company Ltd. However in July that year the name was changed to the India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company.The company entered the business of laying as well as manufacturing cables for other companies engaged in cable laying. During the 1880s some of the first Bell’s patent telephones were manufactured at the Silvertown plant. The company by the 1890s was a supplier of electric generating plants to cities and towns both in the United Kingdom and on the Continent. Bicycle and later automobile tires were a major business segment in later years. By 1927 the company was in financial difficulty until the British Goodrich Rubber Company, itself a subsidiary of the B.F. Goodrich Company, acquired a controlling interest in 1933 and a year later the company's name was changed to British Tyre & Rubber Company.