RT Journal Article
T1 Troublesome telephony
A1 Michael Kay
YR 2015
VO 3
IS Spring 2015
K1 history of technology
K1  history of telecommunications
K1  telephony
K1  Britain
K1  social history
K1  nineteenth century
AB When exchange telephony was first marketed to the British public by the early telephone companies in the late nineteenth century it was as an intuitive technology requiring no specialist knowledge or training. This has gone unquestioned in subsequent telephone historiography but, as this article demonstrates, telephone instruments and systems were not always unproblematic or easy to use. Whilst other scholars have discussed important factors in the development and uptake of telephony, such as business economics and intellectual property, this article focuses on usage, and argues that difficulties in using telephone instruments and systems also influenced key changes in the operations of early British exchange systems. To understand these responses and developments it is necessary to look at the opinions and complaints of both users and non-users of telephone exchange systems. In investigating non-users as well as users, this article is influenced by the work of Sally Wyatt in Oudshoorn and Pinch's (2003) edited volume regarding users and non-users of technologies. Recovering the reactions of such people is possible through extensive use of letters received by the telephone companies or published in the periodical press, and opinions voiced at select committee meetings investigating the state of the country's telephone system. In recovering the difficulties early users and non-users faced when confronted with exchange telephone systems this article emphasises the importance of problematising the historical uptake of new technologies, and highlights how, in the case of early British telephony in particular, these problems can reveal specific facts both about historical telephone use-experience and about how exchange telephony spread around the country.
NO BT Archives, TPF/2/12/2, 'Leeds Telephones', in the Yorkshire Post, 26 December 1888, p 31 
NO For example: Robertson, J H, 1947, The Story of the Telephone: A History of the Telecommunications Industry of Britain (Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd), p 13; Young, Peter, 1991, Person to Person: The International Impact of the Telephone (Granta Editions), pp 6, 8 
NO For more on British telephone historiography, and Perry in particular, see: Kay, M, 2014, 'Inventing telephone usage: debating ownership, entitlement and purpose in early British telephony', PhD thesis, University of Leeds, chapter 1. 
NO E.g. Michie, R C, February 1985, 'The London Stock Exchange and the British Securities Market, 1850–1914', in The Economic History Review, new series 38/1, p 70; Foreman-Peck, James, Spring 1988, 'The Privatization of Industry in Historical Perspective', in Journal of Law and Society, 16/1, p 135; Hall, Brian N, October 2008, 'The “Life-Blood” of Command? The British Army, Communications and the Telephone, 1877-1914', in War and Society, 27/2, pp 45–8; Johnson, Valerie, April 2011, 'Plus Ça Change...? The Salutary Tale of the Telephone and its Implications for Archival Thinking about the Digital Revolution', in the Journal of the Society of Archivists, 32/1, p 80–1; Menke, R, Winter 2013, 'The Medium is the Media: Fictions of the Telephone in the 1890s', in Victorian Studies, 55/2. 
NO Although telegraph exchanges using Charles Wheatstone's ABC telegraph instruments had existed on a small scale in Britain since the 1860s, these served small groups of users who desired only to communicate among themselves; they did not seek to expand by attracting new users, as telephone exchanges did from the beginning, although later they were often converted into telephone exchanges. 
NO Indeed, a 'critical mass' of users needed to exist in a given area in order for the establishing of an exchange to be economically viable in the first place. 
NO This demonstration was by William Preece, then the Assistant Engineer and Electrician of the Post Office, at the Plymouth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science ('The British Association', in the Times, 18 August 1877, p 6). Although an earlier demonstration had taken place in 1876 in Glasgow by William Thomson, it had not been successful. For details see Arapostathis and Gooday, 2013,  pp 98–101 (n.8) and Kingsbury, 1915, pp 56–8 (n.7). 
NO The UTC supplied their subscribers with Edison's carbon transmitter and Bell's magneto receiver for £20 per annum. 
NO This royalty was £1 per instrument, which meant £2 for each pair of transmitters and receivers (Baldwin, 1925)
NO For example, in Dundee, Sheffield, Swansea and Preston. (Baldwin, 1925)
NO Although London had been connected to Brighton in 1884, this trunk line was not very efficient.  (Baldwin, 1925, Electrician, 1888)
NO BT Archives, TCB 304/2, File 66, Questions from Sir John Puleston and Mr. Labouchere in Parliament, 20 June 1890 
NO BT Archives, TCB 304/3, File 9, Marlborough's interview with Lamb, 5 November 1891
NO For a full discussion of this, see Kay, 2014, p 126–8 (n.5)
NO In the 1880s, £20 was roughly equivalent to £1,000 in modern money (for conversions between historical and modern money, see the National Archives currency converter, available online: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/default0.asp#mid)
NO BT Archives, TCB 304/2, unnumbered file in box 2, part 6, 'Report of Leeds Incorporated Chamber of Commerce – Meeting Held on the 16th October, 1885', p 4
NO BT Archives, TCB 304/2, file 40, editorial from Manchester Guardian, 6 December 1889 
NO For example, the Duke of Marlborough: 'The Telephone', in the Times, 29 August 1891, p 7
NO For example, through the instructions included in telephone directories, e.g. NTC List of Subscribers for Nottingham District, January 1885, p 8; NTC List of Subscribers for Midland District, September 1886, p 8
NO For example, by the NTC in Dundee, and the Mutual Telephone Company in Manchester (Baldwin, 1925, p 142, 234 (n.2))
NO BT Archives, TPF/2/12/2, p 9, 'Improvements at the Bradford Telephone Exchange', Bradford Observer, 14 February 1888
NO BT Archives TCB 304/3, File 16, Marlborough to Lamb, 1 January 1892
NO For details of the construction of this instrument, see: Prescott, George Bartlett, Bell's Electric Speaking Telephone: its Invention, Construction, Application, Modification and History (D Appleton & Company, 1884 (reprinted Arno Press, 1972)), p19–20
NO BT Archives, Post 30/398, File 6, Minute, Tilley to Manners, 13 January 1880 
NO This was known as an 'earth-return'.
NO BT Archives, TCB 304/2, File 67, Marlborough to Raikes, 24 June 1890
NO BT Archives, TPF/2/12/1, p 16: 'A New Rival to the Telephone', Birmingham Daily Times, Saturday 14 April 1888; TPF/2/12/2, p 30: 'Leeds Telephones', Yorkshire Post, 22 December 1888 
NO see also: Tucker, D G, 'Beginnings of long-distance telephony , 1882–87', in Electronics and Power, vol. 20, no. 18 (October 1974), p 826 
NO BT Archives, TCB 304/3, File 1, Testimonials of subscribers to the Mutual Company 
NO This accident was also reported in newspapers around the country
NO For example: BT Archives, TPF/2/12/1, p 20, 'A New Danger', in the Standard, 18 December 1888
NO For more on the problems of wayleaves beyond this period, see Stein, 1996, especially pp 151–2 (n.132)
PB The Science Museum Group
SN 2054-5770
LA eng
DO 10.15180/150308
UL http://journal.sciencemuseum.org.uk/browse/issue-03/troublesome-telephony/
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WT Science Museum Group Journal
OL 30