Discussion Post: The Three Garridebs
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sherlock60This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Three Garridebs and the chosen topic is Telephones.
A few facts:
☏ The six inventors typically credited with invented some type of electrical telephony device include:
Alexander Graham Bell: Bell received the first US patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. Bell used his own musical or harmony approach as a practical solution to the telegraph’s problems – Bell’s harmonic telegraph was based on the idea that several notes could be sent along the way simultaneously as long as the notes or signals had different pitches.
Thomas Edison: Edison is credited with inventing the carbon microphone, which “produced a strong telephone signal.”
Antonio Meucci: In 1854, he constructed telephone-like devices.
Johann Philipp Reis: In 1860, Reis constructed “Reis” telephones, but stopped just short of making these telephones practical, working devices.
Elisha Gray: In 1876, Gray used a water microphone to create a telephone in Highland Park, Illinois. Gray and Bell developed their inventions simultaneously and independently, which is why these two would fight a vicious legal battle over who actually invented the telephone…
Tivadar Puskas: This Hungarian invented the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876.
Out of all the inventors listed above, the biggest contention is whether Bell or Gray invented the telephone. These two were the closest to creating what we know as modern, working telephones…
Ultimately, we can safely say the telephone is the work of many people. Bell, however, is credited with inventing the first practical, patented telephone – mostly because Bell won the famous legal battle instead of Gray. [Johnson Hur]
☏ The telephone was fairly widespread in the UK during the latter Victorian era, though mostly it was limited to those places it was deemed necessary (railways, banks, business premises etc). There were telephones fitted to private houses, but typically it was only the very well off who could afford such tools, and usually only if they had a use for it… However there were public phones available, and as time went on, public phones fitted in multiple occupancy residential buildings, tenements etc.
The primary use for the telephone was business use… Often phones were fitted as communication devices between two dedicated areas such as mines / pit heads, factory buildings, etc. Generally these were direct connection (point to point)... [Siliconous Skumins]
☏ 1877: In July, Mr W H Preece (1834-1913), who later became Sir William Preece, FRS and Engineer-in-Chief of the Post Office, brought to this country the first pair of practical telephones seen in Great Britain...
1878: The Telephone Company Ltd (Bell's Patents) was formed to market Bell's patent telephones in Great Britain… It had a capacity for 150 lines and opened with 7 or 8 subscribers. One of the first telephone lines to be erected in the vicinity of London was from Hay's Wharf, south of the Thames, to Hay's Wharf Office on the north bank...
The Post Office provided its first telephones, obtained from Bell's UK agent, on rental terms to a firm in Manchester.
1879: The Telephone Company Ltd (Bell's Patents) open another two exchanges towards the end of the year at 101 Leadenhall Street, EC2 and 3 Palace Chambers, Westminster, the number of subscribers totalling 200. Telephone exchanges were also opened by the company later in the year in Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Bristol.
Edison produced a telephone receiver known as the 'chalk receiver', 'motograph receiver' or 'electromotograph'. The Edison Telephone Company of London Ltd was registered on 2 August… The company's first exchange officially opened on 6 September at 11 Queen Victoria Street, London, with ten subscribers who used carbon transmitters and chalk receivers. By the end of the following February, when the company had another two exchanges in operation, it served 172 subscribers. The annual tariff was £12 against £20 charged by the Bell Company...
1880: The Telephone Company Ltd (Bell's Patents) issued the first known telephone directory on 15 January. It contained details of over 250 subscribers connected to three London exchanges. Details of 16 provincial exchanges were also given. By the time of the publication of their next directory in April, the company had seven London exchanges, 16 provincial exchanges and more than 350 subscribers.
1883: The Central Telephone Exchange was established at Oxford Court, London.
1884: London's first trunk telephone line was opened with Brighton on 17 December.
1886: One of the first freestanding call offices (later to be known as 'kiosks') was introduced in Bristol by the United Telephone Company. It was basically a small wooden hut where a three-minute call could be made for just 'tuppence'... Not all early payphones had a coinbox built into them; some of the kiosks had a penny-in-the-slot mechanism on the door, while others had an attendant to collect the fee. The National Telephone Company actually produced subscribers' Trunk Pass Keys which were used to unlock call offices when members of the public wished to make a trunk call in the attendant's absence.
1890: For the first time telephone communication was opened between London and the Midland and Northern Counties.
1891: The first International service. The London-Paris telephone service, inaugurated in April of this year, was controlled and worked from the Central Telegraph Office until transferred to the Central telephone exchange in GPO South, Carter Lane in February 1904. [British Telephones]
☏ The Edison Telephone Company of London – a direct predecessor of BT [British Telecom] – published its first directory on 23 March 1880.
Though the population of London at the time would probably have been in excess of five million, the number of telephone subscribers in this early directory covering central London numbered fewer than 300.
By the time the first phone book covering the whole of Britain was published in 1896, it contained 81,000 numbers across 1,350 pages.
The Edison directory was notable in that it listed an actual phone number for subscribers – a move on from the first British phone directory published two months previously by what was then named The Telephone Company.
It listed 248 names and addresses of individuals and businesses in London which had a phone. Callers had to ring the telephone exchange, and ask to be put through to a subscriber using their name.
Early directories were also unusual because they included advice on using this newfangled instrument called a telephone: “Answer promptly and announce your identity at once upon receiving a call,” being a typical piece of advice… The number of phone books produced increased dramatically as the network expanded. By 1914 the phone book was the largest single printing contract in the UK, with a million and a half phone books being printed each year. [BT, via the Telegraph]
☏ 1877: [Alexander Graham] Bell’s representative offered to demonstrate the telephone to the British Government. The Post Office Engineer in Chief Richard Culley comments his department had full details of the invention and that “the possible of the telephone appears to be even more limited than I first supposed it”.
1878: The Telephone Company was set up and offers country’s first telephones. In late 1879 its first public telephone exchange opens with just eight subscribers.
1891: A link between London and Paris marked the birth of the international telephone service.
1890s: The principal private telephone companies amalgamate as the National Telephone Company.
1896: The telephone dial was invented.
1901: Marconi sends the first wireless signal across the Atlantic.
1912: Britain’s first public automatic exchange opens in Epsom, Surrey. For the first time customers could make calls without going through the operator – the first step towards automation. [BT]
☏ Although Bell had the ultimate patent rights to the telephone, the Telephone Company Ltd began to face serious competition in Britain. In 1879, the company had opened several more exchanges… 1879, however, also saw the establishment of the Edison Telephone Company of London Ltd...
Up until 1880, private companies could all operate without restriction in Britain… In December 1880, a court judgement was issued that stated that a telephone was a telegraph and a telephone conversation was a telegram. As the Post Office held the monopoly in Britain on telegram services, all private telephone companies were required to obtain a 31 year license from the Postmaster General in order to carry on operating… The Postmaster General decided to restrict private company systems to the areas in which they were already operating, so that the Post Office could expand telephone availability into other areas of the country. The court ruling, combined with debates over patent rights, prompted Bell's and Edison's telephone companies to amalgamate, forming the United Telephone Company...
Although the Post Office effectively had a monopoly on the telephone system, private companies could still flourish under the Post Office umbrella...
This monopoly of the Post Office was somewhat reversed in 1882, when the Postmaster General, Henry Fawcett, decided that any responsible person or company could be granted a license to operate a telephone system, even if they wished to establish a company where a Post Office system already existed...
This liberalisation of the telephone industry allowed the development of the public call office. Up until 1884, the use of telephones had been primarily confined to businesses and industries, with extremely little use in a private capacity. The public call office, however, meant that, theoretically, anyone could have access to a telephone. Public call offices were set up in public places such as railway stations and general stores. Again, this decision was taken by the Post Office, showing how it was still the most powerful player in the telephone business. The call office would later evolve to become the iconic red telephone box...
By 1912, there were seven separate private phone companies operating throughout Britain. However, the Post Office at this point took over the National Telephone Company's system (the largest competitor), meaning that there existed a unified telephone system throughout most of Britain for the first time. [melissiaoliver]
☏ England's first permanent home phone line is… believed to have been installed in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell himself. Bell was staying with Robert Bayly, at Tor Grove House, on the outskirts of Plymouth, Devon, Bayly's wife allegedly felt nervous about living in such an isolated property, so Bell rigged up a telephone line between the main house and the gardener's cottage in order to make her feel more secure…
Bell's original design consisted of a rectangular box containing a single device which worked as both a transmitter and a receiver. The caller would speak into, and listen to, the same opening in the box. It didn't feature an indicator to tell owners when there was an incoming call either, so in 1877, Thomas Watson designed a 'thumper', which made a tapping sound when a call was coming through. The 1890s saw the development of a smaller telephone, which came in three parts - a transmitter, a receiver and a stand (known as a 'candlestick') which had a hook with a switch (or 'switchhook') on it. When the phone wasn't in use, the receiver would be placed on the hook. Cradle telephone designs also began to be introduced at about the same time. [Plusnet]
☏ 1878: Alexander Graham Bell installed a home phone at Osborne House, Queen Victoria's summer residence on the Isle of Wight - and demonstrated it to her by making the UK's first long-distance calls (to London, Cowes and Southampton). 1880: A landmark legal judgement in the UK determined that telephones should be considered to be the same technology as the telegram - and therefore telephone companies needed to purchase licences from the Postmaster General at the Post Office in order to be able to operate. 1895: The Post Office opened its own trunk telephone system to the UK public. 1903: The UK Post Office introduced a cheap rate service, offering 6 minute calls for the price of a standard 3 minute call between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. 1912: The Post Office became the main provider of telephone services within the UK, following its takeover of the National Telephone Company's system. [Plusnet]
☏ The first manual exchange opened in Britain was The Glasgow Medical Telephone Exchange in early 1879, where an unlimited number of calls could be made for the annual fee of £12 a year.
In the early days of the exchanges it was rare for people to be able to talk direct: boys were employed to take the messages then read them out to the person being called. The use of switchboard operators employed to connect callers to one another then became the norm. [Neil Clark]
☏ In January 1880, the first trunk line was opened, between Leeds and Bradford in West Yorkshire. The development of the trunk line meant that a circuit connected the two telephone switchboards in Leeds and Bradford, thereby allowing access to several extension lines at once. This was a method that would eventually be repeated across the country.
The development of central batteries by G.L Anders in 1882 ensured that telephones could all be supplied with electricity from a central source, eliminating the need for batteries at each individual telephone. This technology gradually replaced individual batteries throughout the UK, however it took almost thirty years for central battery exchanges to become the norm… [melissiaoliver]
☏ By 1887 there were 26,000 telephones in use in Britain (and 150,000 in the United States) and multiple switchboards had been installed in most major towns and cities. [Paul Atterbury]
☏ Right after the invention of the switchboard, telephone companies started to hire young men as switchboard operators. Their job was to receive calls in central offices and transfer them to the correct destination. Those early switchboard operators quickly earned a reputation for being rude and display unacceptable attitudes on the phone. Women quickly replaced them. Emma Mills Nutt became the world’s first female telephone operator, on September 1, 1878. The widely held belief that justifies this replacement is that, because of the early state of the telephone exchange system, the condition of work and the transmission quality was poor and therefore, you needed employees conversing with the users in a friendly way. However, the introduction of women as switchboard operators was simply motivated by economic factors. Indeed, at the end of the 19th century, woman switchboard operators were paid from one half to one quarter of a man’s salary. Furthermore, women did not have many options in the workforce and therefore were more dependent on their jobs than men. Employers could then put them under rigorous rules without fear they would leave… They worked more than 10 hours a day. Each operator had to handle hundreds of calls each day. They were subject to a strict code of conduct and dress… Their recruitment was discriminatory, generally based on physical criteria and age. Married operators were often discharged. Switchboard operators’ script was very restricted… [David Egloh] (This article is specifically about the US.)
☏ Telephone Newspapers, introduced in the 1890s, transmitted news and entertainment to subscribers over telephone lines. They were the first example of electronic broadcasting, although only a few were established, most commonly in European cities. These systems predated the development, in the 1920s, of radio broadcasting. They were eventually supplanted by radio stations, because radio signals could more easily cover much wider areas with higher quality audio, without incurring the costs of a telephone line infrastructure…
During this era telephones were often costly, near-luxury items, so subscribers tended to be among the well-to-do. Financing for the systems was normally done by charging fees, including monthly subscriptions for home users, and, in locations such as hotel lobbies, through the use of coin-operated receivers...
The Electrophone, established in London in 1895.., worked closely with the National Telephone Company, and later with the British Post Office, which took over the national telephone system in 1912. The service's main focus was live theatre and music hall shows, plus, on Sundays, church services… Listeners ranged from hospital patients to Queen Victoria.
While some of the systems… built their own one-way transmission lines, others, including the Electrophone, used the existing commercial telephone lines, which allowed subscribers to talk to operators in order to select programs. Programming often originated from the system's own studios, although outside sources were also used, including local theaters and church services, where special telephone lines carried the transmissions to the distributing equipment… [Wikipedia]
☏ Communicating in 1901: The telephone is another apparatus by means of which messages can be sent quickly. Just as we can write by telegraph, we can speak by (or through) the telephone. There are a great number of public call rooms (or offices) in London; the fee is 3d. for each conversation of 3 minutes. A telephone between London and Paris was established in 1891; the fee is 8s. per conversation of 3 minutes. The usual phrases for speaking through the telephone are: (Give me) number…please (said in ringing up the attendant at the exchange [station]). Are you there? (said) to the correspondent) – Here Mr. …(My name). conversation is then carried on in the ordinary tone of voice, and when it is finished, each correspondent presses his bell as a signal for disconnecting. [The Amateur Casual]
☏ The world's first telephone box called "Fernesprecherkiosk", was opened on January 12, 1881 at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. To use it, one had to buy paper tickets called Telefonbillet which allowed for a few minutes of talking time. In 1899 it was replaced by a coin-operated telephone… The first telephone booth in London, England was probably installed near the Staple Inn in High Holborn in May 1903. It was operated and located by the Grand Central Railway. [Wikipedia]
☏ London's first telephone exchange opened on 1 March 1902 near Blackfriars. It had a capacity for 14,000 line users. 'City' Exchange, 'Mayfair' to serve the West End, 'Western' for Kensington, and 'Victoria' for Westminster, all followed soon after, along with suburban exchanges.
The earliest automatic exchanges were installed at Epsom, Surrey in 1912… The first coin-operated telephone call box was installed by the Western Electric Company at Ludgate Circus, London, in 1906. [Exploring 20th Century London]
Some useful resources:
Topic: Telephones in the Victorian Era Various authors, but most pertinently Siliconous Skumins. On The Steampunk Forum at Brass Goggles.
History of the Telephone By Johnson Hur, on BeBusinessed.
A History of the Telephone System in the UK: 1875-1914 By melissiaoliver, on Owlcation.
UK Telephone History On British Telephones.
Early Telephone Apparatus (Modern) photographs on SparkMuseum.
Victorians: Networks On English Heritage. Includes a (modern) photograph captioned: One of two sets used to demonstrate the telephone to Queen Victoria at Osborne House in 1878..
Telephone - description On The Dictionary of Victorian London.
Messages from the past By TS, on The Economist.
The BT Digital Archives It is a repository of documents, photographs, advertisements, reports and other material digitised from the archives of BT, formerly British Telecom, Britain's former monopoly telecoms provider. The archive covers the period from the mid-19th century, when Britain's first telegraph companies appeared, through the nationalisation of those firms in 1870 and their reorganisation as part of the Post Office, to the eventual separation and privatisation of British Telecom in 1982. Description by TS on the Economist.
A short history of telecommunications in the UK On the BT website.
The humble home phone: from 1877 to now On Plusnet.
The first telephone directory is published in London On the Telegraph website.
Telephones UK Having opened in February 2002 this site is now fourteen years old. It contains well in excess of 1500 pictures and information on a wide range of old telephones, new telephones, cordless telephones, telephone kiosks, telephone systems, answering machines, sockets and other miscellaneous pieces of equipment that have been supplied by the General Post Office, Post Office Telephones or by British Telecom.
The Dictionary of Victorian London Link to the main index. Click on ‘Communications’ - ‘ Telephone and Speaking-Tube’.
Telephone On Wikipedia.
General Post Office On Wikipedia.
Timeline of the telephone On Wikipedia.
History of the telephone On Wikipedia.
Invention of the telephone On Wikipedia.
So, Who Did Invent the Telephone? By Essie Fox, on The Virtual Victorian.
Caller, putting you through! By Neil Clark, on the Express website.
By The Amateur Casual, on The Victorianist.
The telephone switchboard : the story of a revolutionary instrument By David Egloh, on cultureXchange.
Telephone switchboard On Wikipedia.
The “Hello Girls” By CT, on Connecticut Digital Newspaper Project.
Switchboard operator On Wikipedia.
Hello! The Telephone Girl By Cromwell Childe - an article from The New York Times, June 11, 1899. On QuickFound.
Telephone System Exploring 20th Century London.
Telephone newspaper On Wikipedia.
Telephone booth On Wikipedia.
Invention of the telephone On The British Library website.
Sam's Telecomms History Links Page By Sam Hallas, on his own website.
1870s-1940s-Telephone On Imagining the Internet - a project of Elon University School of Communications.
London's First Ever Telephone Call On Londonist.
Victorian Technology By Paul Atterbury, on the BBC website.
Ideology and the Telephone: the Social Reception of a Technology, London 1876-1920 By Jeremy Leon Stein. An academic work in PDF form.
Lady Cynthia Asquith on the Installation of the Telephone By Camille Hadley Jones, on Edwardian Promenade. Lady Cynthia Asquith (1881-1960) was the daughter of the 11th Earl of Wemyss and the daughter-in-law of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. In her memoirs, Remember and Be Glad (1952), she reflects upon her life as an aristocratic girl in Edwardian society.
Invisible Empire: A History of the Telecommunications Industry in Canada, 1846-1956 By By Jean-Guy Rens. The link should hopefully take you to a section on telephone operators, but it’s a preview on Google Books so may or may not work for you.
"Hello, Central?": Gender, Technology, and Culture in the Formation of Telephone Systems By Michèle Martin. The link should hopefully take you to a section on telephone operators, but it’s a preview on Google Books so may or may not work for you.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
A few facts:
☏ The six inventors typically credited with invented some type of electrical telephony device include:
Alexander Graham Bell: Bell received the first US patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. Bell used his own musical or harmony approach as a practical solution to the telegraph’s problems – Bell’s harmonic telegraph was based on the idea that several notes could be sent along the way simultaneously as long as the notes or signals had different pitches.
Thomas Edison: Edison is credited with inventing the carbon microphone, which “produced a strong telephone signal.”
Antonio Meucci: In 1854, he constructed telephone-like devices.
Johann Philipp Reis: In 1860, Reis constructed “Reis” telephones, but stopped just short of making these telephones practical, working devices.
Elisha Gray: In 1876, Gray used a water microphone to create a telephone in Highland Park, Illinois. Gray and Bell developed their inventions simultaneously and independently, which is why these two would fight a vicious legal battle over who actually invented the telephone…
Tivadar Puskas: This Hungarian invented the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876.
Out of all the inventors listed above, the biggest contention is whether Bell or Gray invented the telephone. These two were the closest to creating what we know as modern, working telephones…
Ultimately, we can safely say the telephone is the work of many people. Bell, however, is credited with inventing the first practical, patented telephone – mostly because Bell won the famous legal battle instead of Gray. [Johnson Hur]
☏ The telephone was fairly widespread in the UK during the latter Victorian era, though mostly it was limited to those places it was deemed necessary (railways, banks, business premises etc). There were telephones fitted to private houses, but typically it was only the very well off who could afford such tools, and usually only if they had a use for it… However there were public phones available, and as time went on, public phones fitted in multiple occupancy residential buildings, tenements etc.
The primary use for the telephone was business use… Often phones were fitted as communication devices between two dedicated areas such as mines / pit heads, factory buildings, etc. Generally these were direct connection (point to point)... [Siliconous Skumins]
☏ 1877: In July, Mr W H Preece (1834-1913), who later became Sir William Preece, FRS and Engineer-in-Chief of the Post Office, brought to this country the first pair of practical telephones seen in Great Britain...
1878: The Telephone Company Ltd (Bell's Patents) was formed to market Bell's patent telephones in Great Britain… It had a capacity for 150 lines and opened with 7 or 8 subscribers. One of the first telephone lines to be erected in the vicinity of London was from Hay's Wharf, south of the Thames, to Hay's Wharf Office on the north bank...
The Post Office provided its first telephones, obtained from Bell's UK agent, on rental terms to a firm in Manchester.
1879: The Telephone Company Ltd (Bell's Patents) open another two exchanges towards the end of the year at 101 Leadenhall Street, EC2 and 3 Palace Chambers, Westminster, the number of subscribers totalling 200. Telephone exchanges were also opened by the company later in the year in Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Bristol.
Edison produced a telephone receiver known as the 'chalk receiver', 'motograph receiver' or 'electromotograph'. The Edison Telephone Company of London Ltd was registered on 2 August… The company's first exchange officially opened on 6 September at 11 Queen Victoria Street, London, with ten subscribers who used carbon transmitters and chalk receivers. By the end of the following February, when the company had another two exchanges in operation, it served 172 subscribers. The annual tariff was £12 against £20 charged by the Bell Company...
1880: The Telephone Company Ltd (Bell's Patents) issued the first known telephone directory on 15 January. It contained details of over 250 subscribers connected to three London exchanges. Details of 16 provincial exchanges were also given. By the time of the publication of their next directory in April, the company had seven London exchanges, 16 provincial exchanges and more than 350 subscribers.
1883: The Central Telephone Exchange was established at Oxford Court, London.
1884: London's first trunk telephone line was opened with Brighton on 17 December.
1886: One of the first freestanding call offices (later to be known as 'kiosks') was introduced in Bristol by the United Telephone Company. It was basically a small wooden hut where a three-minute call could be made for just 'tuppence'... Not all early payphones had a coinbox built into them; some of the kiosks had a penny-in-the-slot mechanism on the door, while others had an attendant to collect the fee. The National Telephone Company actually produced subscribers' Trunk Pass Keys which were used to unlock call offices when members of the public wished to make a trunk call in the attendant's absence.
1890: For the first time telephone communication was opened between London and the Midland and Northern Counties.
1891: The first International service. The London-Paris telephone service, inaugurated in April of this year, was controlled and worked from the Central Telegraph Office until transferred to the Central telephone exchange in GPO South, Carter Lane in February 1904. [British Telephones]
☏ The Edison Telephone Company of London – a direct predecessor of BT [British Telecom] – published its first directory on 23 March 1880.
Though the population of London at the time would probably have been in excess of five million, the number of telephone subscribers in this early directory covering central London numbered fewer than 300.
By the time the first phone book covering the whole of Britain was published in 1896, it contained 81,000 numbers across 1,350 pages.
The Edison directory was notable in that it listed an actual phone number for subscribers – a move on from the first British phone directory published two months previously by what was then named The Telephone Company.
It listed 248 names and addresses of individuals and businesses in London which had a phone. Callers had to ring the telephone exchange, and ask to be put through to a subscriber using their name.
Early directories were also unusual because they included advice on using this newfangled instrument called a telephone: “Answer promptly and announce your identity at once upon receiving a call,” being a typical piece of advice… The number of phone books produced increased dramatically as the network expanded. By 1914 the phone book was the largest single printing contract in the UK, with a million and a half phone books being printed each year. [BT, via the Telegraph]
☏ 1877: [Alexander Graham] Bell’s representative offered to demonstrate the telephone to the British Government. The Post Office Engineer in Chief Richard Culley comments his department had full details of the invention and that “the possible of the telephone appears to be even more limited than I first supposed it”.
1878: The Telephone Company was set up and offers country’s first telephones. In late 1879 its first public telephone exchange opens with just eight subscribers.
1891: A link between London and Paris marked the birth of the international telephone service.
1890s: The principal private telephone companies amalgamate as the National Telephone Company.
1896: The telephone dial was invented.
1901: Marconi sends the first wireless signal across the Atlantic.
1912: Britain’s first public automatic exchange opens in Epsom, Surrey. For the first time customers could make calls without going through the operator – the first step towards automation. [BT]
☏ Although Bell had the ultimate patent rights to the telephone, the Telephone Company Ltd began to face serious competition in Britain. In 1879, the company had opened several more exchanges… 1879, however, also saw the establishment of the Edison Telephone Company of London Ltd...
Up until 1880, private companies could all operate without restriction in Britain… In December 1880, a court judgement was issued that stated that a telephone was a telegraph and a telephone conversation was a telegram. As the Post Office held the monopoly in Britain on telegram services, all private telephone companies were required to obtain a 31 year license from the Postmaster General in order to carry on operating… The Postmaster General decided to restrict private company systems to the areas in which they were already operating, so that the Post Office could expand telephone availability into other areas of the country. The court ruling, combined with debates over patent rights, prompted Bell's and Edison's telephone companies to amalgamate, forming the United Telephone Company...
Although the Post Office effectively had a monopoly on the telephone system, private companies could still flourish under the Post Office umbrella...
This monopoly of the Post Office was somewhat reversed in 1882, when the Postmaster General, Henry Fawcett, decided that any responsible person or company could be granted a license to operate a telephone system, even if they wished to establish a company where a Post Office system already existed...
This liberalisation of the telephone industry allowed the development of the public call office. Up until 1884, the use of telephones had been primarily confined to businesses and industries, with extremely little use in a private capacity. The public call office, however, meant that, theoretically, anyone could have access to a telephone. Public call offices were set up in public places such as railway stations and general stores. Again, this decision was taken by the Post Office, showing how it was still the most powerful player in the telephone business. The call office would later evolve to become the iconic red telephone box...
By 1912, there were seven separate private phone companies operating throughout Britain. However, the Post Office at this point took over the National Telephone Company's system (the largest competitor), meaning that there existed a unified telephone system throughout most of Britain for the first time. [melissiaoliver]
☏ England's first permanent home phone line is… believed to have been installed in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell himself. Bell was staying with Robert Bayly, at Tor Grove House, on the outskirts of Plymouth, Devon, Bayly's wife allegedly felt nervous about living in such an isolated property, so Bell rigged up a telephone line between the main house and the gardener's cottage in order to make her feel more secure…
Bell's original design consisted of a rectangular box containing a single device which worked as both a transmitter and a receiver. The caller would speak into, and listen to, the same opening in the box. It didn't feature an indicator to tell owners when there was an incoming call either, so in 1877, Thomas Watson designed a 'thumper', which made a tapping sound when a call was coming through. The 1890s saw the development of a smaller telephone, which came in three parts - a transmitter, a receiver and a stand (known as a 'candlestick') which had a hook with a switch (or 'switchhook') on it. When the phone wasn't in use, the receiver would be placed on the hook. Cradle telephone designs also began to be introduced at about the same time. [Plusnet]
☏ 1878: Alexander Graham Bell installed a home phone at Osborne House, Queen Victoria's summer residence on the Isle of Wight - and demonstrated it to her by making the UK's first long-distance calls (to London, Cowes and Southampton). 1880: A landmark legal judgement in the UK determined that telephones should be considered to be the same technology as the telegram - and therefore telephone companies needed to purchase licences from the Postmaster General at the Post Office in order to be able to operate. 1895: The Post Office opened its own trunk telephone system to the UK public. 1903: The UK Post Office introduced a cheap rate service, offering 6 minute calls for the price of a standard 3 minute call between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. 1912: The Post Office became the main provider of telephone services within the UK, following its takeover of the National Telephone Company's system. [Plusnet]
☏ The first manual exchange opened in Britain was The Glasgow Medical Telephone Exchange in early 1879, where an unlimited number of calls could be made for the annual fee of £12 a year.
In the early days of the exchanges it was rare for people to be able to talk direct: boys were employed to take the messages then read them out to the person being called. The use of switchboard operators employed to connect callers to one another then became the norm. [Neil Clark]
☏ In January 1880, the first trunk line was opened, between Leeds and Bradford in West Yorkshire. The development of the trunk line meant that a circuit connected the two telephone switchboards in Leeds and Bradford, thereby allowing access to several extension lines at once. This was a method that would eventually be repeated across the country.
The development of central batteries by G.L Anders in 1882 ensured that telephones could all be supplied with electricity from a central source, eliminating the need for batteries at each individual telephone. This technology gradually replaced individual batteries throughout the UK, however it took almost thirty years for central battery exchanges to become the norm… [melissiaoliver]
☏ By 1887 there were 26,000 telephones in use in Britain (and 150,000 in the United States) and multiple switchboards had been installed in most major towns and cities. [Paul Atterbury]
☏ Right after the invention of the switchboard, telephone companies started to hire young men as switchboard operators. Their job was to receive calls in central offices and transfer them to the correct destination. Those early switchboard operators quickly earned a reputation for being rude and display unacceptable attitudes on the phone. Women quickly replaced them. Emma Mills Nutt became the world’s first female telephone operator, on September 1, 1878. The widely held belief that justifies this replacement is that, because of the early state of the telephone exchange system, the condition of work and the transmission quality was poor and therefore, you needed employees conversing with the users in a friendly way. However, the introduction of women as switchboard operators was simply motivated by economic factors. Indeed, at the end of the 19th century, woman switchboard operators were paid from one half to one quarter of a man’s salary. Furthermore, women did not have many options in the workforce and therefore were more dependent on their jobs than men. Employers could then put them under rigorous rules without fear they would leave… They worked more than 10 hours a day. Each operator had to handle hundreds of calls each day. They were subject to a strict code of conduct and dress… Their recruitment was discriminatory, generally based on physical criteria and age. Married operators were often discharged. Switchboard operators’ script was very restricted… [David Egloh] (This article is specifically about the US.)
☏ Telephone Newspapers, introduced in the 1890s, transmitted news and entertainment to subscribers over telephone lines. They were the first example of electronic broadcasting, although only a few were established, most commonly in European cities. These systems predated the development, in the 1920s, of radio broadcasting. They were eventually supplanted by radio stations, because radio signals could more easily cover much wider areas with higher quality audio, without incurring the costs of a telephone line infrastructure…
During this era telephones were often costly, near-luxury items, so subscribers tended to be among the well-to-do. Financing for the systems was normally done by charging fees, including monthly subscriptions for home users, and, in locations such as hotel lobbies, through the use of coin-operated receivers...
The Electrophone, established in London in 1895.., worked closely with the National Telephone Company, and later with the British Post Office, which took over the national telephone system in 1912. The service's main focus was live theatre and music hall shows, plus, on Sundays, church services… Listeners ranged from hospital patients to Queen Victoria.
While some of the systems… built their own one-way transmission lines, others, including the Electrophone, used the existing commercial telephone lines, which allowed subscribers to talk to operators in order to select programs. Programming often originated from the system's own studios, although outside sources were also used, including local theaters and church services, where special telephone lines carried the transmissions to the distributing equipment… [Wikipedia]
☏ Communicating in 1901: The telephone is another apparatus by means of which messages can be sent quickly. Just as we can write by telegraph, we can speak by (or through) the telephone. There are a great number of public call rooms (or offices) in London; the fee is 3d. for each conversation of 3 minutes. A telephone between London and Paris was established in 1891; the fee is 8s. per conversation of 3 minutes. The usual phrases for speaking through the telephone are: (Give me) number…please (said in ringing up the attendant at the exchange [station]). Are you there? (said) to the correspondent) – Here Mr. …(My name). conversation is then carried on in the ordinary tone of voice, and when it is finished, each correspondent presses his bell as a signal for disconnecting. [The Amateur Casual]
☏ The world's first telephone box called "Fernesprecherkiosk", was opened on January 12, 1881 at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. To use it, one had to buy paper tickets called Telefonbillet which allowed for a few minutes of talking time. In 1899 it was replaced by a coin-operated telephone… The first telephone booth in London, England was probably installed near the Staple Inn in High Holborn in May 1903. It was operated and located by the Grand Central Railway. [Wikipedia]
☏ London's first telephone exchange opened on 1 March 1902 near Blackfriars. It had a capacity for 14,000 line users. 'City' Exchange, 'Mayfair' to serve the West End, 'Western' for Kensington, and 'Victoria' for Westminster, all followed soon after, along with suburban exchanges.
The earliest automatic exchanges were installed at Epsom, Surrey in 1912… The first coin-operated telephone call box was installed by the Western Electric Company at Ludgate Circus, London, in 1906. [Exploring 20th Century London]
Some useful resources:
Topic: Telephones in the Victorian Era Various authors, but most pertinently Siliconous Skumins. On The Steampunk Forum at Brass Goggles.
History of the Telephone By Johnson Hur, on BeBusinessed.
A History of the Telephone System in the UK: 1875-1914 By melissiaoliver, on Owlcation.
UK Telephone History On British Telephones.
Early Telephone Apparatus (Modern) photographs on SparkMuseum.
Victorians: Networks On English Heritage. Includes a (modern) photograph captioned: One of two sets used to demonstrate the telephone to Queen Victoria at Osborne House in 1878..
Telephone - description On The Dictionary of Victorian London.
Messages from the past By TS, on The Economist.
The BT Digital Archives It is a repository of documents, photographs, advertisements, reports and other material digitised from the archives of BT, formerly British Telecom, Britain's former monopoly telecoms provider. The archive covers the period from the mid-19th century, when Britain's first telegraph companies appeared, through the nationalisation of those firms in 1870 and their reorganisation as part of the Post Office, to the eventual separation and privatisation of British Telecom in 1982. Description by TS on the Economist.
A short history of telecommunications in the UK On the BT website.
The humble home phone: from 1877 to now On Plusnet.
The first telephone directory is published in London On the Telegraph website.
Telephones UK Having opened in February 2002 this site is now fourteen years old. It contains well in excess of 1500 pictures and information on a wide range of old telephones, new telephones, cordless telephones, telephone kiosks, telephone systems, answering machines, sockets and other miscellaneous pieces of equipment that have been supplied by the General Post Office, Post Office Telephones or by British Telecom.
The Dictionary of Victorian London Link to the main index. Click on ‘Communications’ - ‘ Telephone and Speaking-Tube’.
Telephone On Wikipedia.
General Post Office On Wikipedia.
Timeline of the telephone On Wikipedia.
History of the telephone On Wikipedia.
Invention of the telephone On Wikipedia.
So, Who Did Invent the Telephone? By Essie Fox, on The Virtual Victorian.
Caller, putting you through! By Neil Clark, on the Express website.
By The Amateur Casual, on The Victorianist.
The telephone switchboard : the story of a revolutionary instrument By David Egloh, on cultureXchange.
Telephone switchboard On Wikipedia.
The “Hello Girls” By CT, on Connecticut Digital Newspaper Project.
Switchboard operator On Wikipedia.
Hello! The Telephone Girl By Cromwell Childe - an article from The New York Times, June 11, 1899. On QuickFound.
Telephone System Exploring 20th Century London.
Telephone newspaper On Wikipedia.
Telephone booth On Wikipedia.
Invention of the telephone On The British Library website.
Sam's Telecomms History Links Page By Sam Hallas, on his own website.
1870s-1940s-Telephone On Imagining the Internet - a project of Elon University School of Communications.
London's First Ever Telephone Call On Londonist.
Victorian Technology By Paul Atterbury, on the BBC website.
Ideology and the Telephone: the Social Reception of a Technology, London 1876-1920 By Jeremy Leon Stein. An academic work in PDF form.
Lady Cynthia Asquith on the Installation of the Telephone By Camille Hadley Jones, on Edwardian Promenade. Lady Cynthia Asquith (1881-1960) was the daughter of the 11th Earl of Wemyss and the daughter-in-law of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. In her memoirs, Remember and Be Glad (1952), she reflects upon her life as an aristocratic girl in Edwardian society.
Invisible Empire: A History of the Telecommunications Industry in Canada, 1846-1956 By By Jean-Guy Rens. The link should hopefully take you to a section on telephone operators, but it’s a preview on Google Books so may or may not work for you.
"Hello, Central?": Gender, Technology, and Culture in the Formation of Telephone Systems By Michèle Martin. The link should hopefully take you to a section on telephone operators, but it’s a preview on Google Books so may or may not work for you.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
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