Telephone
The telephone was invented in 1876. Interestingly, in February 1899 Caerphilly Council issued a public notice stating that the council would oppose the National Telephone Company’s bills in Parliament, and that they would also oppose the Telegraph bill. Later in the year, however, the council said that they would adopt a part of the Public Health Act 1890, that allowed councils to make bye-laws regulating the laying of telegraph wires in the district. Perhaps there were similar health scares then about new communication technology as we have nowadays!
The National Telephone Company eventually set up Caerphilly’s first telephone exchange in 1901. Mr Percy Coleman asked at a Caerphilly Chamber of Trade meeting in 1924 for public telephone boxes to be set up in the streets of Caerphilly. In July 1924, the Caerphilly Council approved a site for a telephone box at the junction of Bartlett Street with Cardiff Road. This is likely to have been Caerphilly’s first street- situated public call box.
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