Engaging with Communications

Have you worked for a telecommunications company located in Manchester?

If so, we’d like your help.

As a major city, Manchester has always been at the forefront of developments in new telecommunications technology and services. Indeed, several firsts have been achieved in Manchester but as time moves on and the pace of technological change accelerates, knowledge of these diminishes. People retire, buildings are re-purposed or demolished, companies come and go, records can be lost, and consequently, important heritage becomes eroded.

Our project seeks to address this problem by recording Manchester’s recent telecommunications heritage from the previous sixty years by engaging with the people who worked for the telecommunications companies located in Manchester. Gathering the personal knowledge, memories, and experiences of people who worked within the telecommunications industry is an untapped resource but represents a rich archaeological seam of information that helps us build a more complete historical record of what happened when, where, and in what building.

Therefore, we are keen to engage with anyone who was (or is) employed by a telecommunications company within Manchester irrespective of whether they worked in engineering, management, operations, human resources, or administration.

Does this describe you? If so, read on and please get in touch with us.

A little background to our project

Working in partnership with the University of Salford’s Centre for Applied Archaeology, we have an ongoing programme of work to record, document and disseminate Manchester’s rich telecommunications heritage. This particular project therefore falls within that general scope of work and is funded by the Council for British Archaeology North West through their small grant scheme.

Our primary focus is to engage with people who worked for a telecommunications company located within the general area of central Manchester and its border with Salford. We would especially like to make contact with anyone who worked within a building that is no longer used for telecommunications or occupied by a telecommunications company.

There is only so much that can be obtained from archival records, where these exist, because they tend to note key press launch dates and major events but not the day-to-day operational detail. Engaging with people who worked within the industry allows us to use their experiences to build a much richer and complete story and map how the telecommunications industry impacted Manchester’s urban and built environment.

We want to engage with people in two ways. By making contact via this website and through a small number of face-to-face oral history workshops organised within the region, details of which will be announced separately.

Thereafter our plan is to disseminate what we learn through this website, publications in the heritage and archaeology sector, public talks, and events such as the annual Greater Manchester Archaeology Festival.

Manchester’s telecommunications heritage is already being eroded

Telecommunications has had, and continues to have, a transformational impact on our society. In the last sixty years the expansion of telephone ownership, the development of broadband internet access and now the dominance of the smartphone have all revolutionised the way we communicate, do business, access and consume information, and even watch television. These developments also impact the physical word around us. In a city such as Manchester, new technology replaces old, buildings are demolished, or re-purposed, and street furniture is both installed and removed. However, these changes and the pace at which they occur, create challenges for industrial archaeology and heritage for things often change before they can be recorded.

The logos below represent some of the telecommunications companies who have operated within Manchester. Many still exist but others have disappeared through re-structuring, closure, or merger.

Manchester is a prime example of the nature of the challenge faced when trying to compile a detailed and complete historical record. The region has always played an important role in telecommunications; indeed, the first telephone installed anywhere in the UK under licence to the Post Office was in Manchester in 1878. Much later, the South Lancashire Radio Telephone Service, a precursor to today’s mobile phone, was launched in 1959 centred on Telephone House in New York Street; a building now repurposed as general offices. In 1977 Dial House in Salford became part of the UK’s first public packet-switched digital network, a forerunner to today’s Internet and then in 1986 launched the Manchester District’s first System X digital telephone exchange. This building continues to be an important telephone exchange for BT but what evidence exists of its earlier significance? The world’s first commercial international video conferencing service, Confravision, opened in 1974 in Bridgewater House, Manchester. That building was also at one time, the local headquarters of BT but now shows no signs of its previous incarnations. In 1996, Nynex pioneered the use of cable modems to provide 10Mbps high speed internet access to homes, a revolutionary speed for its day. Yet, Nynex now only exists as a name on pavement utility access plates that most people walk over without giving them a second glance. In 1997 Norweb Telecom, a local company long since gone, achieved a world first by connecting a local school to the Internet by sending data over the electrical power network. And so, it goes on. Slowly but surely, Manchester’s telecommunications heritage is being eroded.

But it doesn’t have to be like this and that’s why and where we need help.

If you would like to help us with this project and feel able to do so, please complete and submit the form below so that we can establish contact with you and start capturing your valuable knowledge and experience.