By Tim Lambert
Alexander Graham Bell experimented with ways of using electricity to transmit sound, helped by his assistant Thomas Watson and in 1876, he patented the telephone. Over the following decades, telephones had a huge impact on daily life.
In 1878, Queen Victoria was given a demonstration of the telephone. She was very impressed and eventually all her residences had telephones.
On 21 February 1878, the world’s first telephone directory was published in New Haven, Connecticut. The first telephone exchange in Britain opened in 1879.
In 1880, the first British telephone directory was published in London. It listed all 248 telephones in London. But the number of telephones increased exponentially. Also in 1880, the world’s first public telephone came into use in the USA.
In 1887, Paris and Brussels became the first 2 cities linked by an international telephone line. In 1891, London was connected to Paris by telephone.
The first commercial telephone call from London to New York was made in 1927. In 1930, a telephone link was established from Britain to Australia.
Police boxes, containing telephones, were first installed in British cities at the end of the 19th century. The Metropolitan Police, in London, introduced blue Police boxes in 1929. (Dr Who’s TARDIS is, of course, disguised as a police box!). In 1937, an emergency telephone number – 999 – came into operation in London. It was the first emergency number in the world.
Also at the end of the 19th century, telephones for public use, or telephone boxes as they were called, began to be installed in British cities. The iconic red telephone box was first made in 1935.
Telephone boxes were necessary because, until the late 20th century, most people in Britain could not afford their own phones. In 1969, only 40% of British households had a phone, but by 1979 the figure had reached 69%. If you did have a phone in your home, you could use a telephone box to call home when you were away. However, mobile phones eventually made telephone boxes obsolete. Today, some are used to hold defibrillators.
The first commercially successful answerphone was invented by Joseph Zimmerman in 1949.
In 1983, cordless telephones went on sale in Britain.
On 3 April 1973, Martin Cooper made the first call from a handheld cell phone. The first mobile phone call in Britain was made on 1 January 1985. The first commercial text was sent in 1992. Mobile
phones became common in the 1990s. Smartphones were introduced in 1994.
The song ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ was written by Jack Lee. It was released by his group, The Nerves, in 1976. In 1978, it was released by a band called Blondie.
