A new automatic telephone exchange was opened by the Postmaster General (Mr. Alfred Illingworth) in Basinghall Street, Leeds, this afternoon. The new exchange is the largest automatic one in Europe, having 6,800 subscribers, but full automatic exchanges already exist at Epsom, Hereford, Darlington, Accrington, Chepstow, Newport, Portsmouth, Paisley, Dudley, and Blackburn, and new installations are in course of erection at Grimsby and Stockport. The installation at Leeds began in October, 1914, and has been carried out by the Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company Limited, of Liverpool.
The Postmaster General expressed the great pleasure which it gave him to take part in the inauguration of the new system. The system was another illustration of what they had seen during the war ╤ the transference from dependence upon the individual to reliance upon mechanical and automatic means. Telephone subscribers would now be put in connection with each other without the intervention of the manual worker, and if anything went wrong with the machine the short-tempered subscriber would not get any help or satisfaction by cursing the machine. During the war most people had been more or less ╥nervy,╙ and he was afraid that often language had been used to the operators which was not justifiable in any circumstances.
Sir William Sligo, the engineer-in-chief at the General Post Office, said that for many years they had been struggling hard to get the automatic principle recognised. Automatic machinery must replace human effort in telephoning as in most other branches of industry. Nothing could stop it, and the sooner the country recognised the fact the better it would be. The longer the development was delayed the greater would be the amount of capital that would have to be sunk and of machinery and material that would have to be scrapped. They were hoping that the experience of Leeds would be such as to induce subscribers in other large cities to agitate for similar installations. The manual instruments displaced at Leeds would be sent at once for service at the front.
How Calls are Effected.
The proceedings on Saturday included a tour through the buildings, and an explanation of the new apparatus. Some 50 per cent of the operators at the manual machines will be displaced, but work has been offered to them in other departments of the postal service. The automatic service is only for Leeds, and it is of course impossible to dispense entirely with a manual telephone service for the city, as connections have to be established with subscribers in other places. One of the special features of the new process is the automatic instruments with their dial-calling devices.
The first thing to be done in making a call, it was explained, was to lift the receiver from the rest. Next a finger tip has to be placed in the hole of the dial opposite the first figure of the number of the subscriber required, and the dialling wheel pulled round as far as it will go and then released. The process is repeated for the following figures. When the full number has been fashioned a bell rings at the telephone of the subscriber called for, or if he is engaged ╥an intermittent buzzing noise╙ is heard in the receiver by the caller. Should a mistake be made in the process of dialling a number the fault can be remedied and a new start made by at once replacing the receiver on the hook. This severs all connections so far established.
Many advantages are claimed for the automatic system. The time occupied in calling is reduced to a minimum. Prompter attention is given to calls by the subscriber called on, as the bell keeps ringing. Instantaneous disconnection takes place on the replacement of the receiver, and this makes the number immediately available for another call. Constant service is given throughout the day and night without the attendance of operators.
