Posted on: 25th April 2025, by Magrathea
📅 Today is National Telephone Day ☎ – a day to honour one of the most transformative inventions in human history. Since Alexander Graham Bell’s first successful voice transmission in 1876 (we wrote more about this here), the telephone has evolved from a rotary device into the sleek, smart technology we carry in our pockets today.
Some of us (cough) are unfortunately old enough to remember the dread of dialling a number with lots of zeros… IYKYK …
On this day, it seemed like a good idea to take it right back to 1926 when the famous red phone box first made its appearance. These were mainly found in London and were refined to Gilbert Scotts K6 design in 1936 to celebrate King George V’s Silver Jubilee. Over the years these kiosks grew in popularity and provided a vital service where it was needed the most. By the 1960’s there were almost 70,000 red telephone boxes across the country and they have since become an iconic sight in Britain
Over the years, landlines, mobile phones and the internet have meant the phone boxes aren’t a vital service or requirement for local communities anymore and so BT are slowly decommissioning these red phone boxes along with many others. To this day there are around 3,000 working red kiosks in the UK, those already decommissioned have been offered to local communities for £1 as part of their “Adopt a Kiosk” scheme which launched in 2008. This scheme allows communities to keep these iconic pieces and repurpose them to use for defibrillators, libraries, mini art galleries or museums. One has even been transformed into a mini nightclub complete with disco ball, flashing lights and selected music via the receiver in Kingsbridge, Devon.
On a recent trip to London, there were queues to have a photo taken next to a red phone box with Big Ben in the background- how very British… Big Ben, a red phone box and queuing!
As many of our followers will know, we have run a #FondnessForPhoneboxes campaign with many of our employees taking snaps of themselves in the iconic red phone boxes in and around the UK that still have a working handset in them. We continue to honour the legacy of those boxes that enabled our early connections – powering the future of voice communication. Though the phone boxes may be fading from our streets the need to connect through voice remains as strong as ever.
Here’s to the evolution of the telephone and the conversations that continue to shape our world. 📞
#NationalTelephoneDay #FondnessForPhoneboxes