More about the Southampton Office
The Southampton Office, a history.
The building
The Southampton office was located within a Georgian listed building owned by Queen's College Oxford and was situated within the heart of the then shipping office community adjacent to Southampton Docks. The office facilities were miniscule and consisted of only two small rooms. The front room housed the Station Superintendent plus two desks each manned by a BOO provided with a phone/headset and typewriter. This equipment was utilised for accepting cablegrams via the telephone from business users. There was also a small customer counter at the front of the office from where cablegrams for the Americas could be composed/handed in by local businesses or the general public. Up until the early 1960's, the small back office housed only one Telex machine. This one machine was responsible for the sending/receiving 100% of all cablegram traffic which ALWAYS transited via the London Wormwood Street office. Although there was a low level of daily INBOUND volumes at this time, only a handful of outbound BUSINESS related cablegrams were processed each week from this office. The bulk of the outbound traffic consisted of cablegrams which originated from passengers who had arrived by liner at the port that day. This traffic was collected from the liners themselves. A shipping list was obtained each day from the Dock Harbour Office and a member of the Southampton office team would be assigned the following day to "set up office" on whichever inbound/outbound ship was deemed worthwhile in terms of possible cablegram volumes. All major steamship companies sailing to the Americas permitted a Commercial Cable representative to visit onboard during the embarkment/disembarkment of passengers.
Ocean Liners
A small desk was set up on board the liner from where cablegrams could be accepted and paid for, prior to their eventual despatch back at the main Southampton office. A similar agreement was made with the U.S. Navy who provided the same facilities aboard their troop-ships which regularly called at Southampton enroute for their U.S. bases in Germany. Two further purpose-built office-space areas were leased within the reception halls of the Southampton Ocean Terminal itself. This Art Deco terminal was built to house the two mighty Cunarders the "RMS Queen Elizabeth" and her sister ship the "RMS Queen Mary". Whilst in port, all shipboard radio communication was banned and these small leased Commercial Cable facilities allowed disembarking passengers the facility to "cable home" to their loved ones upon their arrival into the U.K. Only the two mighty Cunarders utilised this majestic terminal during the 1960's with the remainder of liners, being allocated to any number of different berth-sides located within the port. The major liners of the day which operated fortnightly schedules to/from the Americas were such ships as the SS United States/SS America, (U.S. Lines) SS France (CGT/French Line), SS Rotterdam (Holland America Line) and a host of smaller ships sailing under a variety of international flags.
Decline of Liner business and new opportunities
As the sixties progressed, trans-atlantic steamship passengers rapidly declined owing to the overwhelming level of success achieved by the newly formed trans-atlantic airline companies. Suddenly, trans-atlantic passenger travel by sea, was a thing of the past. Owing to the rapid decline of this liner originating cablegram traffic, the newly promoted Southampton Office Superintendent, Jack White, was instructed by George L.B. White of London to focus only on "business" traffic. This change of emphasis paid handsome dividends for the company and within four years, the original single back-office "7ERP" Telex machine was increased by a further three “7BRP’s”, PLUS a private wire facility connected directly to Wormwood Street, London. All went well for the office, with significant increases in cablegram volumes being recorded year on year, well into the seventies. As the decade progressed, however, these volumes were to show a gradual but serious decline. International “direct dial” Telex had become available to all U.K. users. This facility, operated directly from the U.K. customer’s Telex machine, allowed for immediate international message delivery, directly into the recipient’s overseas office, at a vastly reduced cost. In an attempt to compensate for these ever-decreasing cablegram volumes, the Company introduced an innovative international messaging service under the name “Comtel.” This service was made available to all U.K. customers, whether they possessed a Telex machine, or not. For those customers who did NOT possess a Telex machine, contact was made with the office in the normal manner via telephone. The international message was then “taken down” over the telephone, but instead of being relayed in standard message format via cablegram, was telexed directly to the recipient’s overseas office. The Commercial Cable Company invoiced the U.K. Customer the standard international telex rate plus a surcharge for handling the call. For the customer, these overall “Comtel” rates were considerably cheaper than the standard practice of charging by the word. A significant number of U.K. customers who DID possess their own telex machine, still found time to utilise the “Comtel” service. International Telex lines could get very busy towards mid/late afternoon. It was found that, rather than be forced to stay late beyond their normal working hours, many telex operators simply relayed their Telex messages directly to the Commercial Cable office. These incoming messages would be immediately captured on the “7ERP’s” perforated tape and later telexed directly to the overseas recipient by the office BOO’s. This would normally take place later in the afternoon when the international lines became less busy. This ‘dual’ cablegram and “Comtel” service continued until the Southampton office sadly, finally closed at the end of March 1978. Truly – the death of an era.
Rod Hollick