Epsom, Britain’s First Public Automatic Telephone Exchange

Liffen, John

Epsom, Britain’s First Public Automatic Telephone Exchange

Resource type

Journal article

Creator (person)

Liffen, John

Date published

November 12, 2013

Abstract

Within three years of the invention of the telephone in 1876 attempts were being made for the partial machine switching of calls. A step-by-step system was developed by A.B. Strowger of the USA in the years 1889 to 1892 and from the beginning of the twentieth century was the first automatic exchange system to come into widespread use there. Conditions in Britain at the time were not conducive to the adoption of machine switching while telephone service was divided between the Post Office and the National Telephone Company (NTC) but the Post Office undertook a review of USA practice. The Post Office completed the purchase of NTC in January 1912 and instituted a series of trials of available automatic systems. The first of these, the public exchange at Epsom, Surrey, opened in May 1912 using the Strowger system. The paper describes the installation and operation of the equipment at Epsom and how it was received by its users and the wider public. In 1922 the Post Office decided to standardize on a development of Strowger step-by-step for British requirements. Ironically, when Epsom exchange required enlargement in the early 1930s it was instead replaced by a new manual exchange. A few examples of equipment from the pioneer British automatic exchange systems survive in preservation.