Hello, Central?

The somewhat whacky telephone exchange names of London

There is an otherwise anonymous road deep in Stonebridge Park, NW10 called Elgar Avenue. While modern audiences may not know what I’m talking about with the term ‘named telephone exchange’, it is possibly uniquely in London named after its former local exchange. Many other such exchanges were named after roads - the other way around.

The local exchange was called ELGar. To reiterate, local telephone exchanges actually having names is an obscure thought for a twenty-first century audience.

These days, we can now speak into our mobile phone, say “Call Ashley Grebbens” and as if by magic, Ashley is summonsed from her kitchen. You ask her to do your a favour and she hangs up. She has wet hands from draining the pasta and can’t use her fingerprint to unlock the phone to achieve the favour for quite a few minutes.

Before the invention of the rotary dial - the in-between technology - a customer would need to call the operator to be connected to another subscriber. Neither the rotary dial nor direct calls to the operator were hindered by wet fingers.

On calling the operator - the first system chronologically - they would take your wire with a plug and connect it directly to the other number with the other end of the plug. And you two were connected.

London had a lot of districts and so ended up with a lot of telephone exchanges.

To simply life for the operator who was using look up tables - names against locations - customers were eventually each given telephone numbers to use.

Each exchange was different. Two, three, four or sometimes five digits long, depending on how big the subscriber base was for a particular exchange.

Exchange names were usually closely tied to the physical location of the exchanges, being the name of a city, town, village or district.

Almon Brown Strowger (1839 - 1902) was an American undertaker turned inventor and who gave his name to the Strowger switch - an electromechanical telephone exchange technology that he had invented. More of why he invented such a thing is in the notes far below.

The Strowger switch was the first commercially successful electromechanical stepping switch telephone exchange system. In November 1922, the General Post Office in the UK adopted this new system.

For London this required the development of the so-called DIRECTOR telephone system which enabled operation with a mixture of both automatic and manual local exchanges until everything got to be fully automatic.

In 1927, the first DIRECTOR exchange was brought into service in Holborn and rolled out progressively across greater London.

People started to be supplied with rotary phones and telephones began to display letters alongside the numbers 2-zero on the dial.

Each London exchange name was three letters long. Subscribers could now remember the three-letter code for the exchange, and dial that before the number.

So if you wanted a number in Perivale, you’d remember PERivale as the local exchange name. On the phone in the image above, the letter P is next to the 7. E is next to the 3. R is also next to the 7. So you’d dial 737 for the exchange followed by the subscriber number.

London telephone numbers were displayed in advertisements, posters and directories in this format. Below is a poster for London Transport enquires - you’d dial 222 1234 given the position of A and B on the dial

Telephone dials had the numbers 1 through to zero. The 1 was a reserved number, never appearing in an exchange name - it had no letters next to it.

You could dial 100 to reach the operator to place a call from, say, London to Aberdeen.

Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) was introduced nationally only as late as 1958. Finally all exchanges were automatic and this allowed people to dial all long distance numbers without operator assistance.

The system was still alphabetic. To phone outside London, you’d first dial a zero and then the alphabetic city code.

Aberdeen was zero-ABE. 01224 is still the all-number code for Aberdeen. If you are eagle-eyed you’ll notice that many all number city codes still have a correlation to the first three letters of many city names. A 1 was hammered into the second digit during the number reorganisation of late twentieth century.

But back to London.

No London exchange names could begin with a 1. Indeed no exchange names could have a converted 1 in them in any position in the mnemonic since there were no letters on a phone next to a 1. These 1-beginning numbers were Post Office (who ran the telephone service for decades) reserved numbers. 100 was the operator. 192 was directory enquires.

No London exchange names could begin with a 0 either as dialling a 0 to begin with meant you were dialling another city. The three-letter exchange names could however have a zero in the second and third positions as it corresponded to the letters O or Q.

999 became the emergency number.

Each exchange code being three characters long meant that the London telephone exchange name designers were left with numbers stretching from 220 to 998, never using a 1, to match the letters on the dial.

Let’s consider how the designers choose the system beginning with the 22 series.

• 220 - we’ll come back to this one

• 221 - it has a one so it wasn’t allowed

• 222 - the Westminster exchange became called ABBey. Westminster had an Abbey so easy to remember. The customer dialled 222. Why not WEStminster - 937? Because there were so many suburbs beginning with the word West -West Norwood; West Ealing. You could only assign 937 once. It was easier to assign an easy mnemonic for Westminster instead: ABBey.

• 223 and 224 were left unused awaiting future exchanges and unnamed new suburbs called BAFlington or CAGshaw.

• 225 was Balham - BAL

• 226 was CANonbury

• 227 was BARnet

• 228 was BATtersea

• 229 was BAYswater

So what about 220, which we left to come back to later?

Acton, deep in West London, had a telephone exchange.

Now ACTon, logically, would be 228.

But 228 was already BATtersea. There was an oak tree on the Acton Borough coat of arms. Perfect. Acton could be ACOrn (220). A bit crazy but - well - why not? Want a number in Acton? Remember the little acorns on the coat of arms.

All over London exchange names were needed and - with a limited choice of available numbers between 220 and 998 (not with a 1), so many district names on the telephone dial would conceivably be duplicates of each other.

So let's come finally to the wonderful and utterly wacky exchange names of London.

Most were simple district names - CHIswick (244), PECkham Rye (732), HENdon (436)

Some came with dubious local justifications for their names.

A few were just weird made-up nonsense.

There were some simply superb names you had to dial when telephone exchanges were alphabetical: Frobisher, Byron, Flaxman, Reliance and many others.

Roger Haworth has done an excellent analysis of the telephone exchange names of London, including research into some of the more obscure of them:

rhaworth.net/phreak/tenp_01.php

Sorry this is blurred on a computer screen but it needed to be big enough to read!

Here are some of the more obscure names that Roger Haworth has listed:

• 220 ACOrn Acton - on the borough coat of arms

• 238 ADVance Bow and Mile End

• 262 AMBassador Paddington where some embassies are located

• 264 AMHerst Hackney after Amhurst Road

• 276 ARNold North Wembley

• 285 ATLas Isleworth

• 283 AVEnue City of London (Monument) after Throgmorton Avenue

• 258 BLUebell Addiscombe and South Norwood

• 278 BRUnswick King’s Cross

• 297 BYRon South Harrow

• 299 BYWood Purley and Kenley - several woods around there

• 236 CENtral City of London’s Central Markets

• 243 CHErrywood Merton and South Wimbledon Cherry Wood (Shaldon Drive)

• 254 CLIssold Dalston Clissold Park

• 250 CLOcktower East Ham - a noble local feature

• 206 CONcord South Harrow

• 207 COPpermill Walthamstow Coppermill Lane

• 273 CREscent Barkingside and Redbridge

• 286 CUNningham Maida Vale

• 326 DANson Park Bexleyheath Danson Park

• 337 DERwent Worcester Park

• 342 DICkens Highbury

• 345 DILigence Wembley

• 306 DOMinion Dagenham

• 373 d DREadnought Earls Court

• 378 DRUmmond North Wembley

• 379 DRYden Kingsbury

• 385 DUKe Fulham

• 386 DUNcan Catford

• 327 EASt Poplar “East End” of London

• 362 EMBerbrook Thames Ditton

• 367 EMPress West Kensington

• 368 ENTerprise Southgate

• 324 FAIrlands Sutton and Cheam

• 343 FIEld End Pinner and Eastcote after Field End Road

• 348 FITzroy Hornsey and Highgate - former Fitzroy Farm

• 352 FLAxman Chelsea

• 350 FLOral Mortlake

• 308 FOUntain Streatham

• 309 FOX Palmers Green Fox Lane

• 372 FRAnklin Wallington and Carshalton

• 373 FREmantle Earls Court

• 370 FRObisher Earls Court

• 425 GALleon Worcester Park

• 430 GEOrgian Ealing

• 437 GERrard Soho Gerrard Street

• 442 GIBbon Putney Edward Gibbon (Decline and Fall) was born in Putney

• 452 GLAdstone Cricklewood and Dollis Hill - local park

• 472 GRAngewood East Ham

• 474 GRImsdyke Stanmore - iron age earthworks

• 470 GROsvenor Mayfair Grosvenor Square

• 485 GULliver Kentish Town

• 445 HILlside North Finchley

• 404 HOGarth Shepherds Bush

• 407 HOP Southwark historically several hop merchants

• 409 HOWard Ponders End

• 483 HUDson Hounslow and Heston

• 486 HUNter St Marylebone

• 487 HURstway Hayes, Kent. Hurstfield, Hurstdene Avenue or Hurst Close

• 493 HYDe Park Mayfair Hyde Park

• 467 IMPerial Chislehurst and Bickley Louis-Napoléon lived and died here

• 482 IVAnhoe Woodford and Buckhurst Hill

• 489 IVYdale Ewell

• 586 JUNiper St Johns Wood

• 532 KEAts Enfield

• 535 KELvin Balham

• 547 KIPling Mottingham and Grove Park

• 522 LABurnum Winchmore Hill

• 523 LADbroke Kensal Green and nearby Ladbroke Grove

• 524 LAGoon Surbiton Surbiton Yes, a lagoon

• 525 LAKeside Wimbledon Lake in Wimbledon Park

• 526 LANgham Bloomsbury Langham Place

• 527 LARkswood Highams Park Larks Wood

• 528 LATimer Stamford Hill

• 542 LIBerty Merton and South Wimbledon

• 548 LIVingstone Norwood Livingstone Road

• 507 LORds Maida Vale Lords Cricket Ground

• 622 MACaulay Nine Elms

• 626 MANsion House City of London (Monument) Mansion House (building)

• 627 MARyland Stratford and Forest Gate . Nearby station

• 632 MEAdway Golders Green Name of a road in Hampstead Garden Suburb

• 635 MELville Sutton and Belmont

• 638 METropolitan City of London (Monument)

• 646 MINcing Lane City of London’s Mincing Lane

• 606 MONarch City of London

• 608 MOUntview Hornsey and Highgate

• 685 MULberry Wood Green

• 686 MUNicipal Croydon

• 687 MUSeum Bloomsbury British Museum

• 628 NATional City of London (Moorgate)

• 602 NOBle West Kensington

• 607 NORth Barnsbury area is north of the City

• 683 NUFfield Hayes and Cranford

• 727 PARk Bayswater and Notting Hill Hyde Park

• 705 POLlards Norbury Pollards Hill

• 707 POPesgrove Twickenham road called Popes Grove named after Alexander Pope

• 774 PRImrose St Johns Wood Primrose Hill

• 770 PROspect Mortlake

• 724 RAGlan Leytonstone

• 728 RAVensbourne Bromley. River Ravensbourne

• 733 REDpost Brixton Red Post Hill

• 734 REGent Soho Regent Street

• 735 RELiance Kennington, Walworth, Vauxhall

• 736 RENown Fulham

• 747 RIPpleway Barking Ripple Road

• 748 RIVerside Hammersmith beside the Thames

• 703 RODney Camberwell and Walworth Rodney Road

• 709 ROYal City of London and Wapping Royal Mint (building)

• 720 SCOtt Nine Elms

• 745 SILverthorn Chingford

• 759 SKYport London Airport Heathrow and Harlington

• 750 SLOane Sloane Square

• 772 SPArtan Dalston

• 773 SPEedwell Golders Green

• 777 SPRingpark West Wickham Spring Park

• 780 STOnegrove Edgware Stonegrove (Watling Street)

• 785 SULlivan Westminster

• 786 SUNnyhill Hendon

• 822 TABard Fleet Street Tabard Inn (building)

• 828 TATe Gallery Victoria Tate Gallery

• 836 TEMple Bar Covent Garden Temple Bar (monument)

• 837 TERminus Kings Cross railway terminus

• 843 TIDeway Deptford Thames tideway

• 809 TOWnley Dulwich and Camberwell Townley Road

• 872 TRAfalgar Whitehall Trafalgar Square

• 873 TREvelyan Ilford

• 870 TROjan Wandsworth

• 883 TUDor Muswell Hill

• 863 UNDerhill Harrow under Harrow-on-the-Hill

• 875 UPLands Purley and Kenley high ground

• 825 VALentine Ilford Valentine Public House in Perth Road

• 826 VANdyke Wandsworth

• 844 VIGilant Sutton and Belmont

• 845 VIKing Northolt and Yeading Viking Primary School, Radcliffe Way

• 847 VIRginia Finchley

• 927 WARing Park Sidcup Waring Park

• 929 WAXlow Greenford Waxlow Crescent

• 935 WELbeck St Marylebone Welbeck Street

• 937 WEStern Kensington - western part of central London

• 944 WHItehall Westminster Whitehall

• 943 WIDmore Bromley Widmore Road

• 907 WORdsworth Kenton

The ELGar exchange of Stonebridge - right at the beginning of this post was preceded alphabetically in the list by the EDWard exchange of Kingston. "EDWard ELGar" may have been somebody's little joke.

NOTES

Note one. As a Kansas City undertaker in 1878, discovering your rival's wife was redirecting your business calls from her switchboard job left three options:

1. request her dismissal from the telephone company

2. pursue legal action against the couple

3. devise an automated telephone system to bypass operators entirely

Almon Brown Strowger chose option 3, creating a direct-dial system that transformed telecommunications.

Note two. As in many of these Substack posts, there's a video which is designed to save to your trouble of reading all this.