The Development of Telecoms - Newcastle upon Tyne

In 1881 permission was given to the Post Office to offer public telephone services in addition to the telegraph service. Telephone exchanges were needed to facilitate calls between different areas and phone handsets. They consisted of a panel of switches, indicator lights, ports and cords which enabled calls to be connected and transferred. 

When a call came into the exchange, the switchboard operator would see lights flashing on their panel to indicate an incoming call. They would plug a cord into that flashing light in order to converse with the caller. When it was established who the caller wished to speak to, the operator would plug another cord into the receiver's port and switch the call across to them, hence the name "switchboard". 

In order to house the new switchboards, some of the telegraph service exchanges had to be converted into telephone exchanges and all of the telegraph equipment replaced by telephony equipment. The first of these conversions took place in Swansea, followed by Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Bradford and Middlesbrough. 

One of these exchanges was the Jesmond exchange, which housed an extensive range of equipment and employed highly skilled staff to operate it. This exchange was one of the largest and most important exchanges serving Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 

In the 1960's, digitalisation and electronic systems gradually replaced these manual switching systems and current advancements in technology and the advent of fibre optic cables and mobile telephony has meant that many of these exchanges are obsolete. The ISDN/PSTN switch off will mark the end of all remaining telephone exchanges and many will be transformed into accommodation like the Jesmond exchange in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 

The Newcastle area, which varies in character, covers 2,300 square miles and stretches from Berwick-on-Tweed on the Scottish border to a line south of the cathedral city of Durham.

It embraces, on the one hand, hamlets in the foothills of the Cheviots and on the long stretch of Hadrian's Wall, fishing villages and seaside resorts on the long coastline, heather moors of north Durham and, on the other hand, the extensive coal fields and busy shipbuilding yards on Tyne and Wear.

Of the 144 exchanges serving the area, 115 are automatic, whilst line plant comprises a network of nearly 500,000 miles of wire, 36,000 miles of which are overhead. The 100,000th telephone in the area was connected in June of this year (1950), the area being the first in the North Eastern Region to attain that distinction. The number of staff, excluding the operating force is 1,487.