rigorousintuition.ca

About British Phone Books, 1880-1984

This collection contains British phone books published between 1880, the year after the public telephone service was introduced to the UK, and 1984, from the historic phone book collection held by BT Archives. The database currently contains 1780 phone books and provides near full county coverage for England as well as containing substantial records for Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

About Phone Books:

The largest section of the phone book, and generally the most significant for family historians, is the alphabetical listings or directory. The alphabetical listings typically contain the following details:

Surname of person (usually the head of household) or name of business
Address
Exchange (up to 1968)
Telephone Number
Phone books also contain an introduction of useful local and operational information. Located at the front of the book these pages may contain lists of abbreviations used, contact information for important government agencies, instructions on how to make long distance calls, explanations of the exchanges and their coverage, or other necessary information in order to use the phone book and telephone equipment. The introduction is not searchable and can only be seen by using the browse function.

Advertisements for local businesses occasionally appear at the tops and bottoms of the alphabetical listings pages, as well as on full separate pages designated as such. Advertisements cannot be searched independently but can be seen by selecting the image of the phone book following searching for a name in close alphabetical proximity or by using the browse function.

Why use Phone Books?

Phone books are very useful for pinpointing individuals in a particular place and time. While censuses were only conducted once every ten years, phone books were published around every one to two years, creating in essence, an almost year by year record of individuals' geographic locations and movements. This makes it possible to locate many individuals in between census years and especially to find family members during years in which censuses are not currently available to the public. For reference, the latest viewable UK census is 1901, and will remain so until early 2012 when the 1911 census can be released.

Phone books are also very telling of an individual's economic and social status since telephone ownership is a prerequisite to an individual's inclusion within this collection. Early subscribers to the telephone service were typically large businesses or the well-to-do. Telephone ownership gradually increased, reflected by a corresponding growth in the size and number of phone books, and from the second quarter of the twentieth century became more commonly adopted by domestic subscribers.

While the alphabetical listings in the phone book will likely be of most interest to researchers, if your ancestor owned a business the advertisement section might also be of interest. There you may learn the location of and type of goods and services sold or offered by the business. This may lead you to additional research in occupational records.

BT actively supports the preservation of Britain's communications heritage. BT has published its commitment in its Heritage Policy (see http://www.bt.com/archives) and its Connected Earth initiative enables the exploration of communications past, present and future both online (at http://www.connected-earth.com) and via a network of partner museums around the UK.

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/bt/

About U.K., City and County Directories, 1600s-1900s

This database is a collection of directories for various areas of the United Kingdom from the 1600s to the 1900s. Various types of directories exist, including:

Street: listing of residents, businesses, and tradesmen according to street address

Commercial: includes businesses, but may also include private residences; generally an alphabetical listing of traders

Trade: not just for businesses, but anyone with a recognized trade or profession; an alphabetical listing of trades and businesses

Court: lists wealthy residents and government officials

Post Office: listing of householder's names and addresses

Many directories are named after the publishers, such as Pigot and Kelly. Most directories originally included maps. Over time, many of these maps were removed. Where still available as part of a directory, the maps are included in this database.

Historical Background:

Directories were first published around the beginning of the nineteenth century; they primarily only covered cities and larger towns. The first major county directories were published around 1820. In London, however, some directories were published even earlier.

Information Contained in Directories:

The original purpose of directories was to provide information about towns and localities for travellers and other visitors. A directory would include a general description of the town or area and then include details on local transportation, churches, schools, government offices, shops, and businesses, etc. Sometimes information on specific people, such as businessmen, traders, and shopkeepers, was included as well.

Later directories began to include sections on private residents. At first this mainly consisted of the wealthier and more prominent individuals. Eventually the directories became more comprehensive and more residents, especially householders, were included regardless of social status.

Why use city directories:

Directories are great sources for locating people in a particular place and time. They are especially useful in between census years and in earlier years when censuses are non-existent. However, directories are also an excellent source for gathering details to help you place your ancestors in historical context. Because most directories provided descriptions and other information about the town and surrounding localities, directories can help you paint a picture of what life in that time and place might have actually been like.

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/colle ... rectories/

Chapter 7 - the Golden Age of Yellow

I once had, I believe it was called, if memory serves correct, a 'Yellow Pages' phone book. It was at least 30 years ago now. It had a very bright yellow cover (almost luminous, but the paint technology wasn't available in those days to actually make it luminous - plus I guess the expense would have been astronomical, even were the tech available). Inside this tome, which measured some twelve inches by nine inches in size, with a thickness of between one and a half to two inches, were marvellously thin sheets of paper, upon which were printed the names and addresses of many localised businesses.

This served as an invaluable 'marketplace' for local tradespeople to tout their wares. Many a time I was stuck with a seemingly intractible problem like 'where shall I find a cufflink extender at this late hour' or 'dammit, my shoe has a hole in the sole' - and Yellow Pages was always at hand to provide a fully indexed and alphabetised solution.

But of course, the benefits of such a 'yellow' knowledgable compendium did not stop there, the book oftentimes became a useful household object in it's own right.

For the elderly, the small telephone table - usually sited within the entrance hall area (or the lounge, if the owner was of greater means) - was more often than not on the rather small size, requiring bending over or even, in extreme cases, bending down to pick up the receiver of the telephone. Many elderly folk found that by placing the 'Yellow Pages' upon their small table, with perhaps a copy of 'The Collected Works of Shakespeare (large type) sat atop it, the need to stoop (and the attendant pressures placed on back, hips and neck) was banished.

As a child, my own grandmother would regale me with tales of the uses that they found for the 'Yellow Pages' during the Great War. If it were a particularly good year for advertising, the 'Yellow Pages' could reach in excess of two and half thousand pages per edition. My grandmother had noticed the similarity between the paper used in the 'Yellow Pages' and that of a proprietary brand of water closet paper called 'Rizol' - they were one and the same! With a little cutting and snipping, plus the addition of a drop of formaldehyde per sheet created, my father and his sisters had the cleanest winking skeevers in their street, at a time when most others were using leaves and old rags because of war shortage!

coffin_dodger » Thu Oct 10, 2019 12:19 pm wrote:Fascinating stuff - thanks for starting such a great thread.

Excerpt from 'The Telephone Book - A Most Interesting Phenomena' by PD Riddly-Bitz
(Puffin Books, 2009)

Chapter 7 - the Golden Age of Yellow

I once had, I believe it was called, if memory serves correct, a 'Yellow Pages' phone book. It was at least 30 years ago now. It had a very bright yellow cover (almost luminous, but the paint technology wasn't available in those days to actually make it luminous - plus I guess the expense would have been astronomical, even were the tech available). Inside this tome, which measured some twelve inches by nine inches in size, with a thickness of between one and a half to two inches, were marvellously thin sheets of paper, upon which were printed the names and addresses of many localised businesses.

This served as an invaluable 'marketplace' for local tradespeople to tout their wares. Many a time I was stuck with a seemingly intractible problem like 'where shall I find a cufflink extender at this late hour' or 'dammit, my shoe has a hole in the sole' - and Yellow Pages was always at hand to provide a fully indexed and alphabetised solution.

But of course, the benefits of such a 'yellow' knowledgable compendium did not stop there, the book oftentimes became a useful household object in it's own right.

For the elderly, the small telephone table - usually sited within the entrance hall area (or the lounge, if the owner was of greater means) - was more often than not on the rather small size, requiring bending over or even, in extreme cases, bending down to pick up the receiver of the telephone. Many elderly folk found that by placing the 'Yellow Pages' upon their small table, with perhaps a copy of 'The Collected Works of Shakespeare (large type) sat atop it, the need to stoop (and the attendant pressures placed on back, hips and neck) was banished.

As a child, my own grandmother would regale me with tales of the uses that they found for the 'Yellow Pages' during the Great War. If it were a particularly good year for advertising, the 'Yellow Pages' could reach in excess of two and half thousand pages per edition. My grandmother had noticed the similarity between the paper used in the 'Yellow Pages' and that of a proprietary brand of water closet paper called 'Rizol' - they were one and the same! With a little cutting and snipping, plus the addition of a drop of formaldehyde per sheet created, my father and his sisters had the cleanest winking skeevers in their street, at a time when most others were using leaves and old rags because of war shortage!

I'll be posting some more from this book as time permits.

Riddly-Bitz has done good work but his social linkages to "eccentric" (crypto-fascist) foodstuff innovator Orville Redenbacher are, by now, well-enough documented that anyone posting him here without proper disclaimer is practically dog-whistling "heil Trump, heil popcorn" and should automatically also fall under close scrutiny.

liminalOyster » Thu Oct 10, 2019 5:59 pm wrote:
"eccentric" (crypto-fascist) foodstuff innovator Orville Redenbacher

"Hart-Davisberg makes insightful and oft stunning observations regarding the secrets contained within the humble telephone directory. His diligent research, spanning decades, coupled with a healthy dose of intoxicating liquor, has unearthed such extraordinary facts that it beggars bellief. For instance, Hitler used The Kensington Telephone Directory to directly communicate with a small cell of Nazi sympathisers right up until the end of the war in 1917. After decryption of the messages contained within the telephone directory - using a method that would put the Enigma system to shame, examined in great detail in the book - the resultant orders were communicated across the country of England using a series of hand gestures, torchlight flashes and simulated wolf cries that could see a message relayed from Kensington to Edinburgh, in Scotland, in a little under seventeen and half days.
Must be read by any self-respecting student of history. Even my dear wife enjoyed it, in her breaks between housework."

Wing-Commander Aishley Brigadoon-Mascot, 961 Sqn, RAF

seemslikeadream » Fri Oct 11, 2019 8:41 pm wrote::P

be careful you might end up on an updated wanted poster

I truly do not understand how you got on the original one, to me you never deserved to be lumped in with the likes of me

@coffin_dodger: you know it's bad form to come slinking back here while still posting shit about this forum and its members on your own forum, right?