The telephone comes to Maitland
Although a number of people were endeavouring to produce a working telephone, it was the Scottish-born Alexander Graham Bell who patented his device first, on 7 March 1876, in Boston, USA. Details of Bell’s invention were published in English Mechanic and World of Science, 6 April 1877, and Scientific American, 6 October 1877. The telephone was to prove a revolutionary device in personal communication.
Alexander Graham Bell’s Large Box Telephone, circa 1876
The telephone’s beginnings in New South Wales
When these publications reached Australia, people began to experiment by trying to transmit sound. EC Cracknell, New South Wales Superintendent of Electric Telegraphs, successfully transmitted music over the telegraph wires between West Maitland and Sydney in December 1877.
F R Wells, the local telephone agent, fitted up a pair of Edison-Bell instruments at the Sydney GPO as a demonstration for the general public on 6 August 1880. During the day, almost everyone who entered the GPO touched the communicator and started a conversation, so that Mr Cracknell, Mr Maguire or Mr Wells, on receiving the call, were kept quite busy answering queries. The three gentlemen relieved each other throughout the day. The demonstration was considered a great success. The age of the telephone had dawned in Australia.
A telephone exchange was established in the GPO in Sydney in 1881 to enable telephone subscribers to be connected to each other to conduct business or private conversations.
Early Siemens & Halske telephones and call whistles as used in Sydney. They are similar to those used in Cracknell’s Maitland experiment.
(Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney)
Connections and use in Maitland
The Maitland telephone exchange was housed in the Telegraph Office at the intersection of High St and Bourke St, and by March 1883 several leading mercantile firms in Maitland were urging the use of telephonic communication between East and West Maitland and Morpeth. In June it was granted by the Postmaster-General, and an effort was made to extend the system to Newcastle. By October, poles and wires were appearing around Maitland to connect the businesses and a request was made to connect the Hospital to the network, free of charge. The Maitland Mercury was delighted at the arrival of the telephone and wrote:
The gentlemen who have taken the initiative in this matter deserve credit, for it is this sort of enterprise that will perpetuate for West Maitland the reputation of being the second town in New South Wales.
Maitland’s business houses were quick to subscribe to the telephone and dominated the early users. Their owners also had their homes connected.
In February 1884, the railway station and goods shed were connected to the exchange. The growing importance of trade in the Maitland district was to be seen in the number and frequency of the visits of representatives of commercial houses in Sydney, producing a demand for increased hotel accommodation. The Royal Hotel, for instance, carried out extensive alterations and improvements in 1885, including the installation of a telephone, which benefited visitors to the town.
In November 1890, Alderman Alcorn moved in a council meeting that a telephone be connected to the Town Hall. After some fierce debate, Alderman Brunker argued that little benefit would accrue from the suggested communication and the motion was withdrawn.
Belatedly, in January 1891, the police station was connected ‘to facilitate the transit of messages of an urgent character’. Next to be connected were Dr Yates’ rooms. With the hospital connected, medical and other emergencies were being catered for, but commercial users still predominated. The Belmore Hotel was connected in 1881. Eventually, the telephone was to be of considerable benefit in disasters: it made for great improvements in response times for fighting fires.
During a storm on Saturday, 13 January 1894, lightning struck a pole outside the Morpeth Telegraph Office, fusing the telephone wires inside the office and causing considerable damage to the instruments. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the surge damaged the steam company’s telephone at the Morpeth wharf office and the telephone office in Hinton.
The election of July 1894 was the first to use the telephone to record results. By this time, the telephone wires had reached as far as Millers Forest, Woodville and other outlying localities. In the electorate of West Maitland, results from outlying polling stations were conveyed by telephone to the Maitland Mercury office, confirming before midnight the return of John Gillies as the local member for the NSW parliament. The Telegraph Office remained open all night with Mr Clay, the operator, passing on messages on the election from all over the colony to the Mercury.
Early wall-mounted telephone, circa 1910.
(Communications and Phones)
The crank on the right turns a magneto, producing an electric current that rings a bell at the exchange, alerting the operator. The earpiece is in a cradle on the left and the mouthpiece protrudes from the front. The bell above the mouthpiece is rung by the exchange, alerting the owner of an incoming phone call
Parliament approved the appointment of female switchboard operators in telephone exchanges in August 1896. The Mercury marked the occasion with a single sentence report:
The Executive this afternoon approved the appointment of about twenty female switchboard operators.
An article in the Mercury of 15 August 1898 reported that although Maitland was the first country town in NSW to embrace the telephone, it had only 25 subscribers compared with Bathurst’s 90. This was attributed to the high cost of installation, £30 to £50 to erect the wires and provide the handset, a considerable sum of money at the time. Generally, private residences were not connected, due to the cost. In an effort to extend the user base, the Department introduced an annual fee of £5 within a mile of the exchange and 10 shillings per quarter mile beyond.
‘Justice’ was catching up with the (now not quite) new technology. Approval was received from the Department of Justice, Sydney, on 5 April 1899, for the courthouses at East and West Maitland to be connected to the telephone exchange. The Postal Department was authorised to carry out the work.
By the end of 1898, there was a total of 8078 subscribers in the colony of NSW, but even by 1905 there were only 82 subscribers in West Maitland and East Maitland. Each of them had a one- or two-digit number. EP Capper & Sons had number 1, Pender Bros number 2. By the late 1920s, most telephone numbers were of three digits: the Ambulance Service number, emblazoned on the side of its building at the intersection of High St and Grant St, was 686.
The number of digits in a telephone number continued to increase. One Horseshoe Bend household had the number 163 in the early 1950s, but later their numbers became 335 163 and then 49 335 163. This family, residents of Partland St, had the only phone in the street during the 1950s. It had a magneto. In making a call, a family member would phone the exchange and nominate the number he or she wished to contact.
The first public telephone (pay phone) had been installed at the GPO in Sydney in 1893 and although there is no indication of when such an installation came to Maitland, it is assumed that public phones soon became associated with telephone exchanges throughout the colony. A Mr H A Fitzpatrick had written a letter, published in the Mercury on 27 June 1891, calling for a public phone to be installed in East Maitland. There was clearly a want for the public use of the new technology outside commercial and official interests. In the early twentieth century, there was a public phone outside the shop in Carrington St, Horseshoe Bend. People had to line up and wait their turn to use it.
After the completion of the extensions to the Post Office in July 1900, the Telegraph Office (including the telephone exchange) moved across High St to new accommodation in what was then named the Post and Telegraph Office.
It wasn’t until the late twentieth century that a telephone was installed in practically every house in Maitland.
A 1970s rotary dial telephone
(CalloohCallay Gallery)
A number was selected and the dial turned to the stop. The dial returned and the next number was selected and so on. An automatic exchange then connected the user to the selected phone number.
References
Bellis, Mary The History of the Telephone and How It Was Invented, ThoughtCo, 2024.
Henderson, Lawrence, ‘Our past: the telephone comes to Maitland’, Maitland Mercury, 13 December 2020.
Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser: ‘The Edison-Bell Telephone’, 10 August 1880; ‘Local News’, 13 March 1883; ‘The telephone in Maitland’, 24 April 1883; ‘Local News’, 7 June 1883; ‘Extension of telephone communication’, 2 February 1884; ‘Improvements at the Royal Hotel’, 17 December 1885; ‘The Maitland Hospital’, 6 November 1890; ‘West Maitland Borough Council’ and ‘Looking forward’, 15 November 1890, pp 3 & 4; ‘Telephone connection with the Police Station’, 13 January 1891; ‘The telephone’, 17 January 1891; ‘Damage by lightning’, 17 January 1894; ‘The polling’, 18 July 1894; ‘Female telephone pperators’, 25 August 1896; ‘Popularising the telephone’, 15 August 1898; ‘Telephone connection, East and West Maitland Courthouses’, 8 April 1899.
Turner, John, The Rise of High Street, Maitland: a Pictorial History, 2nd edition, Council of the City of Maitland, 1989.
