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Series

Post Office: Telephones (Inland)

Catalogue reference: POST 86

What’s it about?

This record is about the Post Office: Telephones (Inland) dating from 1874-1938.

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Full description and record details

Reference
POST 86
Title
Post Office: Telephones (Inland)
Date
1874-1938
Description

This series comprises items on telephone rates and charges, forms of licence issued by the Postmaster General, reports, memoranda and papers relating to matters of telephone policy, items of general interest and a collection of select committee and departmental reports.

Please see BT Archives online catalogue and The Postal Museum's online catalogue for some descriptions of individual records within this series.

The records in this series reflect a former arrangement and have since been re-catalogued. Please contact BT Archives https://www.bt.com/about/bt/our-history/bt-archives for more information.

Note

Catalogue entries below series level were removed from Discovery, The National Archives' online catalogue, in November 2016 because fuller descriptions were available in The Postal Museum's online catalogue and BT Archives online catalogue.

Arrangement

Note that these records have been rearranged to fit the scheme of arrangement used at BT Archives. The records have been incorporated within TCB and the POST 86 reference numbers are now obsolete.

Held by
BT Group Archives
Legal status
Public Record(s)
Language
English
Physical description
76 file(s)
Access conditions

Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure

Immediate source of acquisition
Custodial history: This series of records, along with other Post Office telecommunications records, was transferred from the Post Office Archives to BT Archives in 1991.
Administrative / biographical background

From 1880, the Post Office enjoyed a monopoly in respect of the provision of telegraph and telephone services in the UK, following a legal ruling on the powers conferred on the Postmaster General by the Telegraph Act, 1869. Private telephone companies in competition with the Post Office, principally the National Telephone Company, thereafter operated under licence from the Post Office. This remained the situation until 1912, when the Post Office took over the National Telephone Company which, by that time, was the last remaining telephone concern outside public control.

Record URL
https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/acc65bbc-2ce8-42f4-a89c-b99f6f9b5ddf/

Catalogue hierarchy

56 records

This record is held at BT Group Archives

9 records

Within the fonds: POST 81-88

Early development of telegraph and telephone services in the UK

You are currently looking at the series: POST 86

Post Office: Telephones (Inland)