Telecommunication in Birmingham
The first telephone in Brum was installed in the summer of 1879 by Henry Piercy of Broad Street Engine Works. The first telephone exchange in Birmingham opened by the persuation of Mr Piercy of 12 customers who subscribed to a special introductory rate of £10 a year. The location chosen for the headquarters of the Midland Telephone company was a room in Exchange Chambers at the corner of New Street and Stephenson Place. Within a year of this Wolverhampton, Aston, Smethwick, and the Jewellery Quarter also had their own exchanges. By 1882 the company had attracted it's first 100 customers and had moved into a new home in the attic of a music shop at the corner of Bennetts Hill and Colmore Row. A top floor location was useful, since all the calls came from overhead lines, dropping down like spaghetti through the roof of the exchange. This arrangement was not attractive to the eye, and Birmingham was the first city in the world to install an underground cable in 1883, which led from Bennetts Hill up to Great Charles Street. The first telephone directory in Brum was published in 1886 and contained a list of 614 subscribers. The majority were business customers, but they did include [[Joseph Chamberlain. By 1887 the telephone company moved again, this time to the magnificent Central Exchange, at 19 Newhall Street which still stands today. It accommodated around 60 operators, at a starting salary of eight shillings (40p) a week.
|
|
