The Automatic Telephone and Electric Company (originally the Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company (ATM)) was a British telephone exchange manufacturer established in 1911. After several name changes and acquisitions, the company was merged into Plessey in 1961.

History

The company was reorganised in November 1911 by the cable manufacturer BICC, to make the Strowger system of automatic telephone exchanges (called "Step-by-Step" or SXS in Britain), under licence from the Automatic Electric Company of Chicago. The precursor company ''The Telegraph Manufacturing Company'' dated from 1884, and was based in Helsby, Cheshire. The instrument and telephone manufacturing section moved to

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

in 1892, with premises off Renshaw Street, and in 1908 expanded by moving to a new site at Edge Lane, a former residential area on the outskirts of Liverpool. The British telephone system was operated at that time by a Government department, the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in the 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific ...

(GPO or BPO), which installed several makes of automatic exchanges in the 1910s, including ATE SXS exchanges at

Epsom Epsom is a town in the borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England, about south of central London. The town is first recorded as ''Ebesham'' in the 10th century and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain ...

(1912), followed soon after by the Official Switch (for internal GPO use), and another at

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

(1919). The SXS system was adopted for small and medium-sized British installations in 1923. However, the basic SXS system was not suitable for London and other large British cities; London was served by 80 local exchanges in the 1920s and would have to comprise a mixture of manual and automatic exchanges for some years. The

Western Electric Company Western Electric Co., Inc. was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company that operated from 1869 to 1996. A subsidiary of the AT&T Corporation for most of its lifespan, Western Electric was the primary manufacturer, supplier, ...

, part of the American

Bell System The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the AT&T Corporation, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America fo ...

, proposed either the panel system used in New York or the

rotary system The rotary machine switching system, or most commonly known as the rotary system, was a type of automatic telephone exchange manufactured and used primarily in Europe from the 1910s. The system was developed and tested by AT&T's American engineerin ...

to be manufactured initially in Antwerp by the

Bell Telephone Company The Bell Telephone Company was the initial corporate entity from which the Bell System originated to build a continental conglomerate and monopoly in telecommunication services in the United States and Canada. The company was organized in Bost ...

. The first exchange was to be called BLAckfriars, to serve the densely telephoned district south and west of St Paul's Cathedral. But the company chairman Sir Alexander Roger pointed out to the GPO Secretary Sir Evelyn Murray (a relation, and also Scottish) the dangers of this proposal, which Parliament would not sanction in a time of much unemployment in Britain, and which would also adversely affect British export potential. So the company developed the

director telephone system The director telephone system was a development of the Strowger or step-by-step (SXS) switching system used in London and five other large cities in the UK from the 1920s to the 1980s. A large proportion (c. 70% to 80%) of telephone traffic in ...

, with the director serving the same function as the register in either of the Western Electric systems, so that the routing of the local call was independent of the number dialled. The format for London numbers was retained, i.e. the exchange name (which could be spoken or dialled using letters on the dial) followed by four digits, e.g. HOLborn 4020. According to legend, some circuit details were worked out in the dining car on the train from Liverpool to or from conferences in London, on the backs of old envelopes or on L.M.S. menu cards. In 1922 the GPO Engineer-in-Chief Colonel Purves recommended its adoption for London, as the first cost would be lower than the panel system and the equipment was similar to exchanges already installed. The first director exchange, Holburn, (made by ATM) was cut over in London on 12 November 1927, and the system was subsequently installed in other large British cities. Manufacture was spread over several British firms, with patents pooled; initially ATM plus

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

, the

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and Arms industry, defence electronics, communications, and engineering. It was originally founded in 1886 as G. Binswanger and Company as an e ...

(GEC) and

Standard Telephones and Cables Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd (later STC public limited company, plc) was a British manufacturer of telephone, telegraph, radio, telecommunications, and related equipment. During its history, STC invented and developed several groundbreakin ...

(STC), the local arm of Western Electric. Ericsson Telephones was added to the bulk supply agreement in 1927. Several design features were to be common, e.g. impulses over junction circuits were "round the loop" (ATM) rather than one conductor to earth (Siemens), although subscriber meter registration was by a "booster" battery (Siemens) as this was more reliable than an electro-polarized relay (ATM). ATM obtained several overseas contracts for SXS exchanges, such as in 1920 for

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, operated by the United River Plate Telephone Company. Other contracts for ATM were for several Indian cities (Amritsar, Lahore and Simla), Harbin, and Dairen (Manchuria). GEC also won overseas contracts for

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

(India),

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

(Palestine), and China, the Irish Free State and Siam. The company became part of the International Automatic Telephone Co. in 1920. Its name changed to Automatic Electric Co. in 1932 and then to Automatic Telephone and Electric Co. in 1936, to reflect a product range which included sidelines ranging from Xcel heating appliances to traffic signals. It became part of Plessey in 1961.

History

References

Further reading