Near complete set of phone books for the whole country produced not only by BT, but also by its predecessors including Post Office Telecommunications, the National Telephone Company and other private companies. Dating back to 1880, the year after the public telephone service was introduced into Great Britain, they are of particular interest to family historians.
BT's historical phone books 1880-1984 are also available online. The phone books have been scanned with Ancestry.co.uk and are available for historical genealogical research purposes to anyone with Internet access anywhere in the world. Copies of the phone books from 1880 to the present day may also still be viewed in person at BT Archives.
PDF version of an information sheet on British phone books (168kb)
Historical records of the telecommunications function of the Post Office and its predecessors transferred from the Post Office Archives. These papers document the development of the telegraph and telephone services up to 1980, and include records of preceding private telegraph and telephone companies taken over by the Post Office dating back to the early part of the 19th century. Finding aids to these records can be searched on The National Archives online catalogue. Follow the instructions on screen, or contact BT Archives for further information.
Private telegraph companies
The collection of records from the private telegraph companies dating back to 1846 are some of the oldest held by BT Archives. This collection comprises of the records created and used by the inland private telegraph companies before the network was nationalised under the Post Office in 1870. It also includes some private telegraph companies who operated international services, which were brought under control of the Post Office. This collection includes many interesting items including company letter books and plans of the developing telegraph network. A detailed catalogue and the collections are available to researchers at BT Archives.
PDF version of an information sheet on private telegraph companies (122kb)
BT Collection
This comprises of records created by the company from 1980 to the present day. These are subject to a thirty year closure period.
Visual Materials Library
The historical photographic, video and film collections of BT and Post Office Telecommunications dating back to the last century. A fascinating body of records which includes not just images of old equipment, but views of engineers and telephone operators at work, old vehicles, street furniture and scenes and so forth, including many local views. Copy films, photographic prints and scanned images can be supplied to order, subject to copyright restrictions.
