Telephones in Epsom
1893 to the present
and the centenary
of the introduction of automatic
switching: Epsom, May 1912
An article by
John Liffen
The telephone introduced to Britain
The telephone as a public
service was introduced into Britain in 1878. A test case at the High Court
in 1880 held that the telephone was a telegraph within the meaning of the
Telegraph Acts of 1863 and 1869, even though it had not been invented at
that time. As the 1869 Act gave the Post Office a monopoly of all internal
UK electric telegraphs it followed that they also had control over the
development of the telephone in the UK. To begin with, the Post Office did
not engage in telephone activity but confined itself to issuing operating
licences to the commercial telephone companies.
The multiplicity of small
local telephone companies of the early days underwent a series of mergers
during the 1880s, leading to the establishment of the National Telephone
Company (NTC) as the principal supplier of local telephone service in
Britain. The NTC’s licence from the Post Office was set to expire on 31st
December 1911 and there was no certainty of its renewal. During the 1890s
the Post Office recognised the growing importance of the telephone and in
1895 took over all the NTC’s trunk lines. Henceforth, although the supply of
local telephone networks remained in the hands of the NTC, the Post Office
controlled the infrastructure for long-distance calls. The Post Office, too,
began to open local exchanges in some areas, though not usually in direct
competition with the NTC. In 1899 another Act of Parliament allowed
municipal authorities to run telephone services in their local areas, though
this opportunity was not widely taken up and was with one exception (Hull
Corporation), short-lived.
Epsom goes on the telephone
In Epsom, telephone service
was first provided by the NTC which opened an exchange at No. 1 Hook Road, near
the town centre, in 1893. This used the then-standard magneto exchange
system, whereby the telephone instruments incorporated batteries, usually
Leclanché cells, for supplying the speaking current, as well as a small AC
generator turned by a handle for supplying the current to signal to the
operator at the exchange. On 1st January 1904 the exchange had 55 lines. The
Post Office opened an exchange at 34 Station Road (now Upper High Street),
almost opposite the LBSCR railway station on the other side of the road, on
19 May 1905 and at the beginning of the following year this had 63 lines. It
was of a more modern type of exchange called Central Battery Signalling, or
CBS, in which a battery at the exchange provided the signalling current,
although the telephones themselves still needed a battery for speaking.
By 1911 the number of telephone users (then called ‘subscribers’) in
Epsom was around 350, counting both exchanges. This was the last year of the
NTC, as all negotiations for an extension of the licence had failed and the
NTC was due to be bought out by the Post Office on 1st January 1912. Epsom’s
NTC subscribers could expect early replacement of their magneto telephones
by those suitable for CBS working, but a more profound change was planned:
the first trial on the public network in Britain of an automatic exchange.
Automatic switching of telephone calls
Replacement of the human
telephone operator for switching calls had been the objective of a number of
inventors from the telephone’s earliest days, but such systems were
economical only when switching a large number of calls. The first practical
method was developed between 1889 and 1891 by Almon B Strowger, a Kansas
City undertaker who (it is said) was annoyed by the preferential service
given by the city’s telephone operators to a rival business. Strowger
developed a switch which hunted for and found free lines through a system of
relays, stepping ratchets and line banks. The sequence of operations by the
selectors caused it to become known as the ‘step by step’ system. Strowger
soon sold his interest to the Strowger Automatic Exchange Company, of
Chicago, which in 1901 was renamed the Automatic Electric Company. Large
Strowger systems were installed in, for example, Chicago in 1902 and Los
Angeles in 1904. In 1908 Automatic Electric showed a demonstration Strowger
exchange at the Anglo-French Exhibition held at White City, London.
Epsom first on the public network
As the time of the absorption
of the NTC grew closer, Post Office senior management were conscious of the
technical improvements that would need to be made to the merged network.
After a tour of telephone systems of the USA and Canada undertaken in autumn
1909, the Engineer-in-Chief of the Post Office, Major W A J O’Meara,
recommended that automatic switching should be tried in Britain. The
proposal was accepted and it was decided to try the Strowger system as an
internal exchange at Post Office head offices in the City of London and that
it should be given a public trial too. Epsom was chosen for a number of
reasons. These were articulated by G F Preston, general manager of the Post
Office’s London Telephone Service, as follows:-
1. The percentage of local traffic is the
highest of any Post Office Exchange, being 35 per cent.
2. The number of subscribers concerned is comparatively small. This is a
distinct advantage from a traffic point of view for these reasons:
(a) The ill-effects of any possible breakdown
will be minimised as far as is possible consistently with a thorough trial
of the system.
(b) It will take comparatively little time to educate the subscribers.
3. The subscribers are not busy subscribers,
and will, therefore be less likely to resent what may appear to them to be
the additional work thrown upon them.
4. The comparative dryness of the district is favourable to the satisfactory
working of the switches, which are apt to be adversely affected by damp
climate.
The Strowger interests in Britain were taken up by British Insulated and
Helsby Cables which in turn floated a new company, Automatic Telephone
Manufacturing Company (ATM), in November 1911. The equipment to be installed
at Epsom was purely American, being imported from Chicago by ATM, as the new
company was not yet ready to begin manufacturing. Automatic Electric also
sent over their own expert ‘switchmen’ to install the equipment and train
the Post Office staff working alongside them, and their blunt no-nonsense
approach to the job was no doubt something of a culture shock to the British
technicians. Taking into account the value of the recovered equipment, the
net cost of substituting automatic switching for manual at Epsom was about
£4522. Three months were needed to complete the work but the exchange
building at 34 Station Road would require strengthening first. The new
installation was for 500 lines but could be enlarged to a maximum of 1500
lines. The date of ‘cut-over’ to the automatic equipment was planned for May
1912.

Two motion selector mechanism

Two motion selectors, Epsom telephone
exchange, 1912

Test desk, Epsom telephone exchange, 1912
Close up of selector test stand

Test desk, Epsom telephone exchange, 1912
In the months beforehand Post Office technicians visited every subscriber
to install the new dial telephones together with a special switch to reverse
the earth circuits at the time of cut-over. Ex-NTC subscribers had recently
been connected to the Post Office CBS exchange with new instruments and were
faced with learning two new calling methods in quick succession.
Each subscriber was provided with an information card, size about 10 by
7½ inches (251 by 173 mm), with a set of instructions on how to make calls.
They revealed the ‘additional work’ for which the subscribers needed to be
‘educated’:-
"To operate the Calling Dial, first lift the
Receiver from its rest with the left hand, then, using the right hand,
insert a finger in the hole of the moveable disc corresponding to the digit
to be signalled. Rotate the dial as far as possible and then remove the
finger. Repeat this for each digit to be signalled, allowing the disc to
come to rest before signalling a fresh digit."

Wall telephone set as
supplied to Epsom subscribers in 1912
Telephone No. 55

Desk pedestal telephone, less bell set, as supplied to Epsom subscribers
in 1912
Telephone No. 72
The cut-over took place successfully on Saturday 18th May 1912 at 3.00 pm.
From that time Epsom subscribers could dial all their local calls but still
had to speak to an operator to ask to be connected to a London number or
other districts. For the call being made, the operation of the switching
equipment depended on whether the call was to another subscriber on the same
exchange or to somewhere beyond. The system of numbering was as follows:
Subscribers’ numbers 200-799, London Central Exchange 15, Croydon Exchange
16, Sutton Exchange 17, Information and complaints circuits to manual
switchboard 8, Test desk 9, Long distance calls 0 and Coin box stations
(special four-figure circuits) 1910-1929.
As each subscriber’s number was required to be three digits, numbers 0 to
99 needed to be abolished. The most convenient arrangement was felt to be to
add a definite ‘hundred’ digit to the existing number, hence Epsom 46
becoming (for example) Epsom 546. The scheme adopted was:-
-
numbers 1 to 99 to become 501 to 599 respectively;
-
numbers 100 to 199 to become 600 to 699 respectively;
-
numbers 200 to 500 to remain unchanged.
Ex-National Telephone Company subscribers would have had new numbers
allocated to them when switched over to the Post Office CBS manual exchange.

Reverse of information card supplied to Epsom subscribers in 1912
(original size 251 by 189 mm). BT Heritage POST 30/2380 file XI
A distinctive feature of this pioneer system was that there was no
dialling tone, callers having to assume that the equipment was ready for
operation as soon as they lifted the receiver. As they dialled they heard
clicks caused by the make and break of the ringing relay. If the call was to
another subscriber within the Epsom exchange area the caller dialled the
whole of the required number which operated the appropriate first and final
selectors of the switching equipment. He or she then heard a ringing tone
(described as a pulsating sound) if the number was available or an engaged
tone (described as an intermittent buzz) if not. Calls beyond Epsom needed
to be connected manually, so dialling 15 (for London Central), 16 (Croydon)
or 17 (Sutton) linked to a desk at the appropriate exchange where an
operator asked for the required number. Outside Epsom, the majority of calls
were likely to be made to these areas. Calls to elsewhere in Britain
required 0 to be dialled, connecting the caller to the Epsom manual desk.
Fire alarm calls in the Epsom District were made by dialling 600 and in the
Ewell District by dialling 521. Accommodation was also made for connexion to
Electrophone, the distributed audio service which was available by special
subscription in certain parts of Britain between 1895 and 1925. This was
obtained by dialling 0 for the operator.
Calls were charged according to the type of call. One penny was charged
for each originated local call, two pence for each originated junction call
for London Central, Croydon, and other exchanges in the London area, with
various rates for long-distance or trunk calls. Only the local calls were
automatically metered, other charges being recorded in writing by the
operator handling the call.
Epsom subscribers quickly grew used to the new system and were highly
pleased with it. Within three months traffic on the exchange increased by 60
per cent. Over the following few years several other switching systems were
also tried across Britain but the tempo of conversion was slowed
considerably by the First World War. Finally, in November 1922, Thomas
Purves, the Post Office Engineer-in-Chief, recommended step by step with the
addition of ‘director’ working (in essence the Strowger system with
additional mechanism for inter-connecting groups of exchanges) and research
work by the Post Office and the manufacturers was concentrated on its
full-scale development. To begin with, conversion was to be confined to the
largest towns and cities where it would give the greatest economy in
working. Elsewhere the manual system would be retained, though in rural
areas the Unattended Automatic Exchange (UAX) brought economies too. In the
late 1930s the policy was adopted of complete conversion from manual to
automatic in Britain, though it was recognised that this would take many
years to achieve.
End of the Epsom trial
During this time the pioneer
Epsom installation simply carried on. In London, conversion to director
working began in 1927 when Holborn automatic and Holborn tandem exchanges
opened, after which the changeover proceeded apace. The decision was made to
confine automatic working to within a ten-mile limit from central London and
this, ironically, was the cause of the ending of automatic working at Epsom
for a period of over thirty years. The number of subscribers there was
steadily increasing in the late 1920s (the term ‘station’ refers to the
number of telephone instruments connected):-
1927 1082 lines, 1373 stations
1929 1348 lines, 1682 stations
1930 1550 lines, 1930 stations
1931 1616 lines, 2020 stations
By now the automatic exchange could no longer be expanded. As demand was
certain to continue to increase a new exchange building was needed, and as
Epsom was about 14 miles from central London this had to be manually
operated. The new exchange was in East Street, Epsom, and was equipped with
the then-standard CB No. 1 switchboard. The cut-over from the automatic exchange
took place on 20 July 1932 and the Station Road exchange was closed. Local
newspapers have been checked but, surprisingly, no reference has been found
to subscribers’ reactions to being converted back to dial-less telephones
and slower connexion times.
Epsom thenceforth remained a manual switching area until East Street was
converted to non-director automatic working with STD (subscriber trunk
dialling) facilities on 6th October 1965. By this time there were some 5750
subscribers on the exchange. In 2012 the East Street building was still
Epsom’s telephone exchange, but now with System X digital switching
equipment. Both former exchange buildings, at 1 Hook Road and 34 Station
Road, have long since been demolished, but the location of the Station Road
exchange can still be identified today. In 1912 there was a pillar letter
box on the pavement just outside the exchange. That same pillar box was
still there in 2012, on the south side of Upper High Street near the top of
the hill opposite the former railway station.
Sadly, other than this, there is probably nothing on the ground now to
remind Epsom’s present residents of their town’s principal claim to fame as
a telecommunications pioneer.
References and acknowledgements
To keep the length of this article within reasonable bounds individual
citations have not been given but full details can be obtained from the
author, address below. The principal sources are: Post Office Electrical
Engineers’ Journal, especially the articles in volume 5, July 1912; BT
Heritage, file POST 30/2360; F. G. C. Baldwin, The History of the Telephone in
the United Kingdom (London, 1925); and J. H. Robertson, The Story of the
Telephone (London, 1947). I must express my thanks for the constant and
friendly help provided by the staff at BT Heritage, High Holborn, London, in
identifying documents, scanning illustrations and for permission to
reproduce material in their care. I must also thank the volunteers and staff
at Epsom & Ewell Local and Family History Centre, Bourne Hall, Ewell, for
their help in finding large-scale maps and local street directories.
John Liffen
ex Curator of Communications
London,
Science Museum
29 April 2012
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