This weeks work at SwiB - May 28th 2012

SWiB... The South West Image Bank

Today I have been scanning and editing the final stages of the Roy Westlake "Iconic Images of Plymouth" photographs some of which include the sub catergory "The Plymouth Telephone Exchange" I have included some of these Images on this weeks blog for those of you who are interested in this particular area to look at. These are 1940's images of the Plymouth Telephone exchange:

"On Wednesday May 17th 1933 the Postmaster-General, Sir Kingsley Wood MP, laid the foundation stone of the new automatic telephone exchange in an unusual ceremony. 

The stone was one of three to be laid that day, all by remote control from the General Post Office in Westwell Street.  When Sir Kingsley pressed a button at 4.40pm, the stone at Norley Place, along with those at the new exchanges in Exeter and Torquay, fell a half an inch into place.  There was apparently no-one watching this historic event in Plymouth and men working at the site barely noticed the foundation stone fall.  The ceremony was carried out in the presence of Plymouth's Head Postmaster, Mr D Laws.

The big change-over came on Saturday July 6th 1935.  At 1.55pm all callers were asked to defer making their calls for about fifteen minutes.  When all the lines at the manual exchange were clear, just after 2pm, a signal was sent to the switch room and 160 Post Office workers pulled strings attached to pegs inserted in the switches at the rate of 200 per second to re-connect the 7,400 subscribers. 

By 2.06pm the exchange was in operation again.  Immediately the change-over had been completed, officers at each exchange rang every subscriber, starting with doctors, nursing homes and hospitals, to tell them that the new system was in operation.  It was now possible to dial your own call right through as far as Torquay.

The Plymouth Automatic Telephone Exchange was formally opened by Lady Nancy Astor on Monday July 29th 1935."

* http://www.plymouthdata.info/Telephone-11-Plymouth%20Exchange.htm



Having now completed the 30 subcategories of this Collection I will be moving onto a new project next week so lookout for next weeks post on that one!