CB1 manual telephone exchange switchboard

Before the days of automatic telephone exchanges, anyone picking up the phone to make a call would hear the words 'number please'. These were spoken by the telephone operators, who would connect the call using cords and jacks, plugged into the sockets of a switchboard like this section of the CB1 manual switchboard from Enfield telephone exchange.

Manual exchanges provided employment for hundreds of women, as they were seen as being more suited to the polite nature of the work, as well as being cheaper labour than men. The Enfield telephone exchange was installed in 1925, and was the last manual exchange to run in London. It was converted to an automatic exchange in 1961.

Credit: General Post Office
Object no: 1961-94