These boxes allowed Police officers to keep in touch with their station. The Police service also adopted a network of telephone boxes. Each sentry box carried its own unique number, or name, which helped identify its specific location. The patrolmen would man the boxes or travel between them on bikes, providing motorists with roadside assistance. The motoring clubs employed patrolmen to help their members and the sentry boxes provided shelter for its patrolmen. Motoring organisations - the Automobile Association (AA) and Royal Automobile Club (RAC) - realising the benefits of a telephone network for their members soon started developing a network of sentry boxes.Īt the time, cars were expensive to purchase and they were prone to breaking down. It wasn't just the GPO that introduced a nationwide telephone network. Its design was conservative and appeared somewhat old-fashioned. In 1921 Britain's first standard kiosk, the imaginatively named Kiosk No 1 (abbreviated to K1) was introduced. However, the outbreak of the First World War saw development of a standardised kiosk put on hold. With the combined staff and assets of two separate organisations, the GPO looked at standardisation of equipment, including telephone kiosks.
#Phonebox background series
But gradually, through a number of Acts of Parliament, and a series of acquisitions, services were consolidated under the National Telephone Company (NTC) and the GPO.ġ912 marked a watershed for the UK telephone network when the assets of the NTC were acquired by the GPO, effectively nationalising the telephone network. This meant that the first public telephone network could be created, at a time when there were only 13,000 telephones in use, nationwide.Īs telephone technology developed, an increasing number of services were set up in larger towns and cities across Britain. In 1884 the GPO relaxed the rules which had previously restricted the coverage of exchanges, allowing for the development of a national system. This subscription provided them with a telephone and connection to the network. These companies operated a series of local exchanges to which households and businesses could subscribe. There was not a single, unified system, instead the service was owned and operated by a number of private companies. The telephone was a marvellous technical innovation, but was very expensive, so their use in the closing decades of the nineteenth century was limited to wealthy homeowners and businesses. The General Post Office (GPO), a Government department until 1969, held the monopoly on telegraphic communication in Britain. Before the development of the telephone in 1876 communication over any distance was often by telegraphy and wireless telegraphy.