Section 4 - Identifying a Telephone

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From time to time, we get asked, "What is this telephone? Who made it? Do you have the circuit diagram?" And often we can say, "Yes, here are the details..."

My name is Coen Meeder and I live in the Netherlands. I collect telephones. I should like to receive more informations about a wooden phone. I asked Ken Bushell of ATCS in Sydney about the phone. He says it is British. Maybe a British Ericsson no.11 (in the inside there is a schedule with the words "Telephones no. 3 and 11 (Mark 238)". He mentions the book Telephony by Herbert and Procter.

If you look at the back of the telephone, you should see some markings hammered into the wood, something like this...

No. 11
E24
238

The top line tells you the model or type number. The second line tells you (in code) the name of the manufacturer and the year in which it was made. The third line-if there is a third line-tells you the modification status; the original version is always 234, the second 235, the third 236 and so on.

The book Telephony by Herbert and Procter is a book published before the war which has line drawings and circuit diagrams of most designs of old British Post Office telephone. Unfortunately it is not so easy to find nowadays and usually quite expensive.

Manufacturer Codes-A Summary

AK: Peel Conner (later GEC).

C: GEC (now GPT)

E: British Ericsson (later Plessey, then GPT).

FBR: Refurbished at Post Office Factory, Birmingham.

FHR: Refurbished at Post Office factory, Holloway (London)

FWR: Refurbished at Post Office factory, Wales (Cwmcarn)

H: Automatic Telephone and Electric (later Plessey, then GPT)

PL: Plessey (became GPT)

PX: Phoenix.

S: Siemens Brothers (later AEI, then GEC, now GPT).

TE: Telephone Manufacturing Company.

W: Western Electric (and later STC).

Z First letter of code on items made for the British Army.

All BPO telephone sets (and piece parts) carried a pattern number, in which table telephones, portable telephones and piece parts such as handsets carried even numbers whilst wall telephones had odd numbers. Special and experimental telephones had numbers prefixed SA (Special Apparatus), whilst designs inherited from the former National Telephone Company were prefixed NT. The pattern number is often followed by a mark number, generally starting with mark 234, which would be equivalent to Mk 1 in any other organisation's series.

Note that type numbers of telephones beginning AP or Z are not BPO codes. AP stands for Admiralty Pattern, denoting a Royal Navy design, and YA is a British Army prefix. Type numbers beginning H are generally ATE products (the company originated at the place of Helsby), N denotes British Ericsson products, S are Siemens Brothers or AEI numbers, whilst a number beginning SA on BPO instruments denotes Special Apparatus, generally a pre-release prototype or an item made specially for a particular customer.

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