The unrivalled experience gained throughout AEI's long history hasresulted in one of the most comprehensive cable product rangesavailable anywhere in the world.

Our cables are suppliedinto market sectors including Construction, Defence, Fire Protection,Industrial, Mining, Oil and Gas, Power and Rail.

The historyof WT Henley, who founded the company which bore his name, began in aworkshop in London, 1837, with the manufacture of covered wires.

Henleyprogressed at an impressive rate and pioneered the submarine cablefield with the dream of seeing all of civilisation linked togethertelegraphically. In 1859 he spent £8,000 building a factory at NorthWoolwich beside the Thames.

His name would soon besynonymous with the development of submarine telegraph cables, asuccess story that culminated in 1863 with the laying of the PersianGulf telegraph cable, 1615 miles long, for the Indian Government.

Bythe end of 1873, the Henley site had spread to cover some 16 acres andHenley owned three cable laying ships and a 400 foot wharf to allow 500ton ships to load and unload. Henley died in 1882, but the company heformed went from strength to strength with branches throughout thecountry.

In 1906 work was completed on the impressiveGravesend factory on the Thames, which like the North Woolwich factoryincluded wharf facilities but, perhaps more impressively, extensivepurpose built research laboratories. The choice of Gravesend for a sitewas an easy one, as company historian Ernest Slater wrote in 1937"Gravesend is where the sea ends and the river begins."

Duringthese same Victorian years Sir William Siemens, who founded Siemens andHalske in1858, was equally as active in the manufacture of submarinecables, in addition to projects as diverse as dynamos and recordinginstruments.

The Victorian Era came to a close and soonthe Great War swept Europe, acting as a great catalyst fortechnological and industrial change, particularly in the realms ofelectrical equipment and distribution. The great depression followedand during these bleak years The Edison Swan Electric Company becamethe founder member of the Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) in1929.

TheSecond World War saw Henley's company winning praise for various tasksperformed for King and Country, especially its contribution to'Operation Pluto', the system of petrol pipe lines across the EnglishChannel. The main Henley factory at North Woolwich, however, sufferedrepeated damage during the war years which led to the decision to builda purpose-built factory at Birtley in the North East, completed in 1950.

In1953, AEI acquired Siemens Bros., taking over the Liverpool ElectricCables Company in 1958 and Henleys a year later. These cable companieswere integrated as the AEI Cable Division, re-organised in 1960 intofour product groups. In 1967 the General Electric Company took over AEICables and Hackbridge Cables Co., culminating in the formation of AEICables Ltd in 1968. In 1982 production of Mineral Insulated Cablescommenced at AEI's Cables Bootle factory in Merseyside.

Today,AEI Cables is focused on its manufacturing facilities at Birtley in CoDurham. Here, we specialise in the design and manufacture ofelastomeric and thermoplastic cables for voltages up to 20kV. Theseinclude high performance PTFE and ETFE thinwall cables and wires, theTranscab range of Rail Transportation System cables and the Firetecfire performance cable range.

Proud of its past and excitedby the future, AEI Cables has evolved into a modern, go-ahead cablemanufacturer for today’s global business environment with its focusfirmly on its customers.