Mobile phones are commonplace these days and having a landline is becoming more unusual – but 70 years ago, Jersey was putting the final touches to a system to support islanders having a telephone in their home.
On 27 October 1955, the new Eastern Telephone Exchange was opened in Rue de la Hambye, St Saviour, to take over from smaller telephone exchanges in Gorey and at Five Oaks.
It was the final link in the establishment of new manual exchanges for the country districts, following the Western, Northern and Southern in 1949, 1951 and 1952 respectively.
These had all replaced smaller exchanges that were often situated in private houses and staffed by caretaker operators.
The opening of the new exchange was marked with a ceremony that featured the Bailiff, Sir Alexander Coutanche, and other invited guests.
They were greeted by Mr S G Crill, President of the States Telephone Committee, as well as other committee members and employees.
Also present were the Constables of St Saviour, St Martin and Grouville, whose parishes were to be covered by the exchange.
Engineering manager C J Syvret gave the guests a tour of the exchange, showing off the modern equipment, which had been supplied by the General Electric Company.
Newspaper reports at the time revealed that the exchange was dealing with 1,500 subscribers and had six “lady operators”, led by supervisor Mrs Foster.
They had capacity to deal with 3,000 users, with 12½ miles of cable and 10,000 miles of copper wire used to connect up the exchange.
Mr Crill said this was the last in the ring of manual country exchanges and that the next project they would be working on would be the provision of an automatic system at the Central exchange.
The Bailiff thanked the committee president for the invitation and commented that the building was very simple but behind the scenes “one realised that it was a magnificent engineering feat”.
He said: “There are only 1,500 subscribers on this board, but the six girls seem very busy and no doubt it is the ladies who are having conversations – I am sure it is important and I hope that none of them exceed the three minutes limit. It is however, my own experience, that they do.”
Mrs Coutanche was unable to attend the ceremony so it was suggested that Sir Alexander call her to have a conversation, which he proceeded to do. Mrs Coutanche went on to talk to Mr Crill.
The culmination of the morning saw Sir Alexander making a call to St Lô in France, where he exchanged greetings with Préfet Henri Larrieu and his wife, who had made a number of official visits to Jersey.
Having concluded the ceremony, the party left for the Grouville Hall Hotel, where the president and the committee entertained the guests over lunch.
The Central exchange finally went automatic in 1959, followed by those in the country parishes in the 1960s and 1970s.
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This story has been told as part of a series in collaboration with Jersey Heritage.
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