Quote:
Originally Posted by Gridiron
I have a large wooden battery box about 28" long, 10" high, 7" wide including lid which had handles and terminals at both ends which I believe was a GPO battery box. I was wondering if anyone knows what batteries went in these boxes and where they were used, would they be for exchange batteries. I have seen quite a few of these at antique fairs but can't find any information on the internet.
Mike.
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It is a GPO 'Box, Battery, Leclanche, WK1, 4Cell' used to accommodate up to four glass Leclanche cells i.e. a battery of cells to give a voltage if up to six volts. Used to power 'local battery' telephones which needed a local supply to power the telephone speech rather than telephones powered by a 'central battery' at the exchange. Used with magneto exchanges or 'central battery signalling' exchanges where only the signalling was powered by the exchange. Last GPO magneto exchange was Jura which finished in 1974 and last CBS exchange was Portree on Skye which finished in March 1976.
See extract from GPO's 'Vocabulary of Engineering Stores' in the 1950's.
I remember happy days with the lineman going round 'subscribers' topping up Leclanche cells or renewing the zinc rods back in the 19... (rather a long time ago) In those days exchanges were often in private houses. For instance one of the exchanges was two positions in the front bedroom (circled in red) of No 3 Sunny Villas in Rossett but the exchange battery in a shed in the back garden was a 24volt lead acid cell one. The folk who lived in the house worked the board at night and two girls cam by bus from the nearby large auto-manual board at Wrexham. I worked on the replacement Strowger exchange which replaced manual exchange at Rossett then years later commissioned the replacement TXE2 electronic system. That was then replaced by System X years ago and now we're about to start going over to VoIP over IP!