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.

Until sectorisation and 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).

With the introduction of all-figure numbering (AFN) came sectorisation and exchange prefixes were reassigned by sector. 

• Codes starting 2 and 6 were assigned to the City Centre.

• Codes starting 3 to the North East.

• Codes starting 4 to the South West.

• Codes starting 5 to the North West.

• Codes starting 7 to the South East.

No codes have been allocated on the 8 and 9 levels but recently a few codes have been assigned to the 1 level (110, 112, 100).If they are to receive incoming calls,  numbers on these exchanges will have to be dialled using the whole national number, e.g. 0121-100 xxxx.. 

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: List of non-director exchanges

Key to list

• AFN = all-figure number(ing)

• Codes to adjacent non-director exchanges are underlined.

• 'Code only' means that callers dialled the three letters or numbers alone. Not an exchange prefix.

• AFN preceding 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.

• Exchange codes without the prefix AFN 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.

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.