Little is known about the origins of Sterling Telephone and Electric Company Limited, seemingly the earliest piece of information available is that, from the 1890s, they added telephones to their range of products.

They were certainly an early electrical parts manufacturer and gained success with their range of small intercoms and their telephones. They supplied telephones and intercoms to the National Telephone Company, originally using parts sourced from L M Ericsson, but then using their own parts following the outbreak of the First World War. They also bought phones from Ericsson and Western Electric and rebadged them. Eventually, they dropped much of their product range to focus on their telephones which they started building to the Post Office's standard pattern.

However, despite this success with phones, they were primarily a general electric manufacturer rather than a telephone specialist. They were also eventually part of the founding group of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC).

In 1926 Marconiphone Limited bought their company which ended the telephone manufacture. Although the company had ended, their name did live on in unusual ways. For example, during the Second World War, Sterling submachine guns were manufactured from their old estate in Dagenham.