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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: jess5athome on Thursday 09 July 15 12:56 BST (UK)
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Hi, does anyone know when we started and stopped using the 3 digit telephone numbers in the United Kingdom?
I have a small glass milk bottle with the words "J.E & E. OATES Ltd Thorne Dairies, 3 NE Rd Tel.116"
embossed on the glass and I am trying to find out the age of it.
I believe the dairy ceased production in the 50's or 60's, I thought if I could get a date line for the telephone number 116, then I would have a date for the bottle.
Regards
Frank.
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We had Skene 577 in the early 1980's.
Regards
Malky
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We had a four figure number in the 1950s in Hayes, Middlesex; can still remember it HAYes 7328. :)
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Perhaps it depended on the area. We'd had the modern type of number for years, since at least 1960s I think in the Manchester area, then Derby in the 1970s, Surrey in the 1980s, but when we moved to Wiltshire in 1990, the telephone numbers there had only just changed and the locals still referred to their phone numbers as - "name of village" 123.
Nanny Jan - I can remember our 'phone number in the 1940s (my mum had a shop so was allowed a phone, but it was a party line) the number was ALTrincham 1072, then in the mid 1950s we moved to a house and the number there was RINgway 3080. Strange I can't remember any other later 'phone numbers apart from where we live now.
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Have you seen this:
http://www.shopping-advices.com/featured/vintage-milk-bottle-oates-dairies-thorne-near-doncaster.html
Nell
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1962 telephone directory, on Ancestry, shows the telephone number as Thorne 3116
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That was quick!! :o :o :o
Thank you all for your replies, BumbleB I looked on Ancestry but could not find it ::) :-[ so presumably the 116 preceded the 3116, that narrows it down a bit, thank you.
Little Nell, Thank you for the link, can you believe that looks to be the same kind of bottle as the one I have :)
Again thanks to all of you for your valued input :)
Frank.
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I think it depended whereabouts in the country you lived as to when the numbers changed. Most small towns had their telephone exchanges but as these were amalgamated with bigger ones so the numbers in each town had to have an extra number added to avoid duplication of numbers.
In the corner of Kent where I live the change to four digits seemed to happen in early 1968 but before that the numbers would have been from 1 to 998 (not 999 for obvious reasons) right from the beginning of telephones with operators asking for 'number please?'
This does not help with dating your bottle as it could be any time from early 20th century to the 1960's.
Sorry can't be more help,
Regards
AJ
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1938 = 116 = Oates, Grocer, Dairy, North Eastern Road (transcribed as G Oates)
1939 = 3116 = Oates, Grocer, Dairy, North Eastern Road (transcribed as G Oates)
;D ;D ;D
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1938 = 116 = Oates, Grocer, Dairy, North Eastern Road (transcribed as G Oates)
1939 = 3116 = Oates, Grocer, Dairy, North Eastern Road (transcribed as G Oates)
;D ;D ;D
Yes, but which month did it change in?
:)
(seriously, nice job!)
BugBear
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Date for 1938 is April 1938.
Date for 1939 is October 1939.
:P ;D ;D ;D
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If you get the chance - do have a look at the images on Ancestry for these telephone directories, go to the beginning of the directory and read up on how to use the telephone -
"Speak clearly, deliberately and directly into the transmitter. Keep earpiece close to ear. The lips should be as close as possible to the transmitter mouthpiece - almost touching it. If you speak clearly it is rarely necessary to speak loudly." Give us a kiss :-* :-*
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Date for 1938 is April 1938.
Date for 1939 is October 1939.
:P ;D ;D ;D
1938 = 116 = Oates, Grocer, Dairy, North Eastern Road (transcribed as G Oates)
1939 = 3116 = Oates, Grocer, Dairy, North Eastern Road (transcribed as G Oates)
;D ;D ;D
Marvelous!! BumbleB, you are a star :) :)
Thank you so much.
Many thanks to every one who answered my question :) :) :)
Regards
Very happy Frank.
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There was probably a difference between the densely populated cities and metropolitan areas, like London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow. Which later on became 01; 021; 051; 061 etc.
Some rural sparsely populated areas still had three digit numbers in the 1970s.
Dials used to have letters as well as numbers, just as the buttons on mobile phones.
Each exchange in the major cities had a name like Whitehall; Central; Bootle, and the first three letters would be used.
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I don't recall whether the last three digit numbers were abolished on PhONEday (16 April 1995, the day we got an extra 1 in our dialling codes) but if not the change from 3 digit numbers to 6 digit happened within the previous few months in the Scottish village in which I lived. Our numbers went from 0xxxx2 xxx to 01xxx 722xxx. Previously we only dialled 3 digits in the village, subsequently 6. There were other villages on the exchange which had a different digit between 3 and 6 instead of the 2. Before the change to 6 digit numbers there was some kind of local dialling code, maybe an 8 followed by the "village digit", to reach these.
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Hi
In the 1950's we had the number ARN(old) 5020
Changed to 1020
Then 204 1020
Then 01 204 1020
Then we moved to 'Erts and the number of the local pub changed to
0208 204 1020 [ The Green Man, Kingsbury, NW9 ] [ Go on ring it! ]
[ There is no such thing as coincidences ] ;D
Ray
[ hic ]
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Except it shouldn't be written as "0208" because the two groups of 4 digits after the dialling code 020 can be dialled successfully within London as an 8 digit number - the same is true of 021 to 028 numbers in their respective urban areas and - in the case of 028 - province. The correct format is 020 8xxx xxxx. Strangely, the lady on 1471 doesn't know that though - or didn't when I last noticed a few years ago.
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Hi
There are other "errors" in my story . . . . .
hic!
Ray
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I've just remembered that in "The Man Who Never Was" the Black Lion, Mold had a two digit phone number in 1939 - something like Tel: 26 (sorry I lent the book out, silly me). How would that work?
I remember that when 3-digit numbers were phased out our neighbours were annoyed that theirs suddenly went to 6 digits while ours stayed at 4. We eventually joined them there, of course.
Older Lancaster numbers like ours have only 5 digits still which confuses people. On a form I sometimes have to add a 6th "dummy" digit before being allowed to proceed. Seems to work.
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When we moved into our house nearly fifty years ago we had a four digit telephone number. Those four digits are still the final digits of what is now an eleven digit number. The extra digits were added gradually over the years
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In the 60s / early 70s my parents had a three digit number. It changed in 1972 (I think) and became a six digit number. The last three digits of the six digit number were the same as the original three.
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The change was phased in over a period of years with the roll-out of automatic exchanges.
This item is from the West London Observer, 3 October 1924:
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When we moved house in 1970 our new number was Loftus 776 which then had a 40 prefix added and by 1981 had become 640776 with a 4 digit area code. I am unsure of the exact dates of the changes but it was a relatively rural area
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Surely it was all down to population numbers.
In 1966 my aunt and uncle had Bristol number - Clifton 33515.
Regards
Chas
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back in the 50's our number was 21 by the end of the decade it had a 3 added by 63 it was 4321
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As recently as 1960 my parents had a 3 digit telephone number.
They also had a party line which meant that if the other party was on the phone you couldn't use your phone although you could listen in....
My cousin worked at a manual (is that the right word) exchange where she connected phone users.
A colleague of my cousin was sacked for passing on to her parent some information she had picked up! after connecting two people she knew
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Re Peter, lots of London businesses get the format wrong, even above premises, and even argue when told. Sometimes it even confuses people if you give a number correctly, 020-8xxx-xxxx, then they read it back to you wrongly.
Martin
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...Of interest to anyone?
http://www.lightstraw.co.uk/ate/
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Chris - getting off topic here but did the book 'The Man Who Never was' mention a pub in Wales and if so why? My wife and I have seen the film countless times and Major William Martin was portrayed as coming from Scotland. (His true origins are somewhat dubious) and in the film they do not venture into Wales. I'd be fascinated to know.
Regards
AJ
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Just come across an old letter heading from my grandfather's business
W G Parsons and Sons ,Builders, Rock Road, Midsomer Norton Tel 17
About mid 1930s
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Chris - getting off topic here but did the book 'The Man Who Never was' mention a pub in Wales and if so why? My wife and I have seen the film countless times and Major William Martin was portrayed as coming from Scotland. (His true origins are somewhat dubious) and in the film they do not venture into Wales. I'd be fascinated to know.
Regards
AJ
The film is not accurate - one of the criticisms of it is that it was partly based on a different earliier book by Duff Cooper, but the book by Ewen Montagu, who was actually involved, is more accurate. (The sequences at the end of the film where the Nazi agent investigates, are pure fiction.)
Glyndwr Michael is not mentioned in the book out of respect to his family, but he was an alcoholic from South Wales who died in London in 1943, hence the convenient body. I have heard a theory that some other person may have been the real corpse, but the point is that Glyndwr Michael was used as the basis for the fictional William Martin.
In the book Montagu says that he chose the birthplace of Cardiff at random, but it's very near Michael's birthplace of Bargoed. In the effects that were placed in the body's clothing there was a letter purporting to be from his father John Glyndwr ! Martin, and that is written on the notepaper of the Black Lion, Mold. That established the Welsh connection, but I think someone involved must have had some of the stationery - who doesn't "borrow" stuff from their hotel room?
The Scottish connection comes from the body being taken up to the Clyde where it was to be taken aboard a submarine. The book has photographs of this sequence of events.
I remember the Black Lion being a pub and hotel, but it's long closed - it's now a branch of the Halifax and a shop. Chris
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyndwr_Michael
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Thanks for that Chris - very interesting. That establishes he Black Lion mention.
There is a theory that Glendwr Michael's body was never used as it was too decomposed and that a body from an escort carrierl that blew up in Scotland was used instead. No proof, though.
The film was a damn good one - my wife and my favourite.
AJ
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Short telephone numbers hung around longer than I expected, even in cities.
The coachbuilder's plate from my car, fitted in 1927, gives their contact details as "Telephone 8 Derby".
The company (as Holmes & Co) had the same number in the earliest phone book on Ancestry. There were already 3 digit numbers in Derby in Victorian times, and still single-digit ones 30 years later.