ALPHA EXCHANGE CODES OF BIRMINGHAM

The following is a list of codes as used in Birmingham up to the end of letter dialling (and just beyond).

The first three director exchanges in Birmingham were introduced in 1931 and by November 1954 only one manual exchange (South) was left in the 'seven mile ring' director area.

Virtually all Birmingham codes was geographical (names after the districts they served), unlike London where all manner of literary and historical names were also employed.

Up to the end of letter code dialling, the first digits of director codes were teed as follows:

• 1 to 7

• 2 not teed

• 3 to 9

• 4 to 8

• 5 to 6

In other words, you could (if you chose) dial 700 for the operator (instead of 100) and 973 for ERDington (instead of ERD = 373).

One exchange code gave problems in use and was changed. WARstock was renamed MAYpole with publication of the 1953 directory.

COLmore was a hypothetical exchange and translated to CENtral. With publication of the 1956 directory COLmore numbers became shown as CENtral numbers.

As in London and other director area, there was wholesale alteration of exchange codes when all-figure numbering was brought in as part of sectorisation.  

Detail information

• List 1: Codes in Numerical Order
• List 2: Map showing exchange sectors
• List 3: List of non-director exchanges

Key to list

• Codes to adjacent non-director exchanges are underlined.

• Exchange codes followed by their all-figure number (AFN) numerical equivalent are the old letter codes that were mostly abolished after the introduction of AFN. A few codes were unaltered. All tees between the old codes and their new AFN replacements were cut on 25th April 1970.

• AFN preceeding the code denotes a new exchange introduced following AFN. These exchanges never had an 'old name' or letter code and are shown on the list to illustrate how the system expanded after the abolition of letter dialling codes.

Further reading
An article on trunk and toll mechanisation in Birmingham was printed in the November 1954 issue of the Post Office Telecommunications Journal. A history of telephone service in Birmingham appeared in the Summer 1964 issue of the same magazine.

Questions to be resolved
No research is ever complete and a number of issues remain to be resolved.

1.The list may omit some unpublished letter codes for service or engineering use.

2. The attribution of second units is subject to confirmation.

3. Latterly single-digit codes were allocated to certain numbering ranges in adjacent non-director exchanges:

    2xx    Dudley 6-digit numbers (probably codes 221, 224 and 224)

    2xx     Kidderminster 6-digit numbers (probably code 251)

    5xx    Fordhouses 6-digit numbers (probably 578)

At this point in time it is impossible to confirm or disprove these assumptions.

    2xx