Australia's first telephone exchange was opened in Melbourne in August 1880. It was operated by the Melbourne Telephone Exchange Company. Owned by W. H. Masters and T. T. Draper, the Manager of the Company was H. Byron Moore. This was only two years after the world's first exchange in the United States, and just four years after Bell first spoke on a telephone. The exchange was located in the old Stock Exchange building at 367 Collins Street, a site now occupied by the Commonwealth Bank. In 1884, the operations of the Company, by then known as the Victorian Telephone Exchange Company, had grown considerably and were transferred to Wills Street, Melbourne. Private ownership of this company continued until 1887 when it was bought out by the Victorian Colonial Government. Other colonial governments followed this example. By 1910, the growth in telephone services made additional accommodation necessary. This could not be provided in the existing building in Wills Street and arrangements were made for a new exchange in Lonsdale Street. Alexander Graham Bell visited Australia in 1910 to advise the Federal Government's Postal Commission. Telephone exchanges were established in Adelaide with (48 subscribers), Hobart (10 subscribers) and Launceston (35 subscribers). The first exchange in Western Australia was established in 1887 and located in a small three-room cottage in Wellington Street, Perth with 17 subscribers. The year 1888 marked the opening of the Fremantle exchange in a small room at the rear of the Town Hall. There were nine subscribers. Australia's first automatic exchange was installed in the GPO in Sydney, in 1911, for internal use. But the first automatic exchange for public use was opened at Geelong in Victoria in the next year July 1912 with 800 subscribers. Melbourne's first automatic exchange was opened in the suburb of Brighton in 1914; the first public automatic exchange in NSW began operating at Newtown, Sydney in 1915; and Queensland's first was installed at South Brisbane in 1925. 1929 saw the opening of Tasmania's first automatic exchange in Hobart. an automatic telephone service. In June 1977, the manual telephone exchange at Swansea was replaced with an automatic service and made Tasmania the first State in Australia to have a fully automatic network. The half-century following Federation saw the growth of the automatic operation; a great extension of trunk line services; The automatic telephone contributed greatly to the early popularity of telephones in Australia. It was a quicker and more convenient way of communicating with another person on the same exchange — instead of having to go through tedious processes with the operator. From its introduction, the number of automatic telephones in operation grew to a remarkable extent. In 1886, the first trunk link of 16 km was connected to the exchanges of Adelaide and Port Adelaide in South Australia. Then, in 1907, the first inter-capital telephone trunk line was opened between Sydney and Melbourne. It was followed by a line between Melbourne and Adelaide in 1914. Sydney and Brisbane were linked in 1923, and Perth and Adelaide in 1930. In 1930, the first overseas calls from Australia came possible with the introduction of a radiotelephone service to England, and through there to Europe and America. A similar service opened to New Zealand in the same year. Initially, trunk channels linked different manual trunk exchanges. It was necessary for a succession of trunk operators to connect the appropriate channels, one after the other until the connection was made. As trunk traffic grew. the system became increasingly unsuitable. More trunk operators had to be employed and so labour costs increased. It was a tedious and slow way of making a long-distance call, and it was sometimes hard to hear, particularly when several exchanges were linked With technical advances, trunk switching moved from manual operation through a partly automatic phase. Automatic transit switching equipment was used and only a single operator was required to connect a trunk call to a wanted automatic subscriber. Until well beyond the middle of this century, the majority of trunk traffic went through this single telephonist control. In 1953, the number of telephones in use in Australia passed the one million mark. By then, the need for improvement in the automatic exchanges was becoming well recognised. The need was for a telephone switching system which would do a better job more economically than the conventional step-by-step ex-change. This led to the adoption of the Crossbar system as the standard in automatic telephone exchanges in 1960. The introduction of Crossbar switching was a big step forward in the automation of trunk calls. It substituted automatic switching and charging equipment for the originating trunk operator, and improved the quality of the system radically. Before the introduction of the Crossbar system there were often very long delays in obtaining a booked trunk call, and the quality of sound was often very poor. With Crossbar, Subscriber Trunk Dialing (STD) became a reality. A trunk call by STD was as easy to make and almost as fast to connect as a local call.The item was made around the 1940s and used up until the 1970s in manual cord telephone exchanges as a way to time and charge users for trunk calls made over the telecom system of the time. Post Master General dept. - Trunk Call Timer.Inscribed PMG, C. of A, 37. Bell chimes at 3 min increments.flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village, timer, trunk call, telephone, cord exchange

Brass, metal and wood tripod for use with a heliograph complete with canvas and leather carrying handleStand. Lamp for helio a mark III. Number 3710 PMG Vic 1941

A black and white photograph by Alan Doney of PMG Engineers Branch 17 McKenzie Street Bendigo showing the detail of the wrought iron on the verandah. alan doney, bendigo, wrought iron, balustrade

The family of 826 Harry James Britter have collected paper clippings, cablegrams, greeting cards relating to the Service of H J Britter, who enlisted into the AIF on 12 July 1915, he was posted to 31 Battalion. In WW1 this Battalion initially went to Egypt, the Battalion consisted of two companies from Queensland and two companies from Victoria. The documents are originals and have been preserved by the family of 8216 Harry J Britter, a Geelong man who enlisted into the AIF on 12 July 1915Paper clippings, Cablegrams, Greeting CardsPaper clippings - with photographs of 826 H J Britter, PMG Cablegrams from Britter to wife etc, Military PMG Cablegrams re Britter injured in hospital. Greeting Cards from Britter to wife.31 battalion, 826 harry j britter

Book - 11 foolscap pages, stapled within Manila card folders with a label glued to front cover titled "MMTB Service of Track Telephone Locations and Numbers". Has a hand dated date of "Oct 1977" on the bottom of the right hand corner of cover. Gives instructions for the usage of the phones and how the individual track phones may be contacted. Gives plans for Brunswick, Camberwell (including Bullen bus), Carlton Control, Essendon, Footscray (using PMG lines), Glenhuntly, Hawthorn, Head Office (all PMG), Kew, Malvern, Nicholson St, North Fitzroy, (some PMG), East Preston, and South Melbourne Depots.In pencil on top right hand corner "Engine House"trams, tramways, mmtb, telephones, depots, head office

50th Anniversary of Mt Gambier-Melbourne flight, Feb. 1917 (Cherokee aircraft at Essendon Airport), Re-enactment of flight by pilot John Hardingham. A. Cherokee aircraft on tarmac, on back b. Cherokee aircraft with Mrs V I Perkin (Basil's sister), Mr Luscombe (PMG Department) and a mailbag sitting on tarmac. Handwritten ID on backs plus PMG stamp with negative ID number, V1867/2person, individual, basil watson

Bag leather for mail with "Mailman's Loose Bag" stamped into flap."PMG" stamped under flap. Flat pouch-type bag with buckle and strap fastener & long shoulder strap.flagstaff hill, warrnambool, shipwrecked-coast, flagstaff-hill, flagstaff-hill-maritime-museum, maritime-museum, shipwreck-coast, flagstaff-hill-maritime-village

Collection of Newspaper clippings from Scrap Book 1960 - 1973Article about PMG and National Bank argument re $73,600 gone missing when sent in a mail bag from Cowes Post Office to the Mail Exchange in Spencer Street Melbourne.pmg cowes, national bank cowes, mail exchange spencer st melbourne, jean jamieson

A postal employee (Postie) of the Post Master General (PMG) is delivering mail by bicycleBlack and white photographic printOriginally located in a Filmpro King Size Prints processing envelope $3.01 Shire of Eltham 9/9/66 and noted as Calrossie Ave area and crossed out Eltham-Yarra Glen Road, Bridge Street to Elsa Court existing conditions mid 1967infrastructure, roads, unidentified, australia post, post master general, postie, bicycle

Contains the following tickets showing the style of tickets issued by various public transport operators. 3 pages of MMTB Imperial currency tickets 1 page of Pensioner concessions 3 pages of decimal currency tickets including dual currency type 1 page of Ultimate tickets - type sold at safety zones by Zone sellers 1 page of PMG prepaid tickets, special supplementary journal, machine bus ticket 1 page of PMG prepaid Section tickets, 1 page of incapacitated section tickets 2 pages of Hospital tickets Scholar's Concession ticket issued to the donor, Swimming class tickets and a Police ticket. 2 pages of unidentified tickets SPER National Park line 1 page of Adelaide tickets 4 pages of Provincial tramway tickets, dual currency including a Bendigo battery tram ticket. 3 pages of Brisbane tram and bus tickets 2 pages of Launceston bus tickets - 1968 1 page of Hobart tickets VR motor coach (bus) ticket 1 page of Perth tram tickets A TAA ground transport ticket San Francisco ticket, Hong Kong tickets, 2 pages of recovered MMTB tickets from behind tramcar seats - imperial currency and one MMTB Supplementary Running Journal.Yields information about the style of tickets issued by Australian Public Transport systems.Album - heavy black/green card covers containing 35 ruled quarto sheets secured with an Arnos metal binder with the title "Tickets" taped to the front of the object.tramways, melbourne, tickets, ballarat, bendigo, adelaide, launceston, hobart, brisbane, hong kong, taa airlines, perth, san francsico, sper, pmg

Job 56M431 Bridge handrails March 1960 Line Foreman Dan Boyd (PMG) Contractor W.E. WolfRecord of various Shire of Eltham infrastructure works undertaken during the period of 1952-1962 involving bridge and road reconstruction projects, sometimes with Eltham Shire Council Project Reference numbers quoted. It was during this period that a number of significant improvements were made to roads and new bridges constructed within the shire that remain in place as of present day (2022). In many situations, the photos provide a tangible visible record of infrastructure that existed throughout the early days of the Shire. The album was put together by or under the direction of the Shire Engineer, J.A. McDonald.infrastructure, 1960-03, bridge construction, cherry tree road, heidelberg-kinglake road, road construction, shire of eltham

Each of the five telephones is attached to a timber, wall‐mounted box. They are original to the precinct buildings and date from the early twentieth century. Located in the lighthouse lantern room, the former head keeper’s quarters, the former assistants’ quarters, and the buildings known today as the generator shed and the café, they formed an intercom system that facilitated communication between the lightstation buildings.Wall‐mounted Bakelite telephones with crank handles can be found at all six light stations, however Gabo Island has the only other example of a timber‐mounted phone. Its design is slightly different for incorporating an inclined surface for jotting down notes. As fixtures, the telephones are considered to be part of the building fabric and included in the Victorian Heritage Register listing for the Cape Nelson Lightstation (H1773; 18 February 1999). They are historically significant for their historical and technical values as part of the early communications system used at the lightstation.Five similar intercom system telephones. All are wall mounted timber boxes with Bakelite black hand sets and black cords. The five phones each have two bells at the top of the box and a crank handle at the side. Three phones have brass bells, two have black metal bells. All phones have instructions on the front either in a frame or glued to the timber."C of A" and "PMG" Written instructions on how to use the phones are printed on paper fixed to the front of the telephones. "TO CALL ....../ TO ANSWER...../ WHEN FINISHED....."

This system overcome the problem of errors in verbal transmission and recording of information These units were serviced by the PMG (Post Master General) These were the type used in the Aeradio building. Grey colour, Teletype machine with key board and original teletype paper tape roll installed.(front) Siemens Australia (back) Fernschrieber Fs Sk 2186/1 240Vteletype, telex, information

April 30 1998, marked the transition from the New Zealand led Truce Monitoring Group (TMG), OP BEL ISI (I), to the Australian led Peace Monitoring Group (PMG) and the beginning of OP BEL ISI (II). The transition occurred following the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement in the Arawa township on Bougainville Island earlier that day. The PMG consisted of about 100 people from Australia, NZ, Fiji and Vanuatu. F324093 WO2 Cheryl A Frawley was a member of OP BEL ISI II serving between 27 May and 8 0ctober 1999 Brown timber frame with green mount containing six photographs and yellow brassardF324093 WO2 C A Frawley OP Belisi II 27 May 1999 - 8 0ct 1999op belisi ii, wo2 frawley

Although the Beenak Post Office officially closed on 31 August 1951, the Mail Box continued to be used until 1976. The history of Beenak (the town that never was) is part of the Yarra Valley Ranges, and this picture tells the story of the historic MailboxBlack and White Picture of the original Beenak Post Office Letter Box, used for collecting mail during the Beenak Sawmilling operations. The Friends of Kurth Kiln have errected a Commemorative Plaque on site next to the huge gum tree that still carries the scar where the the mail box had been mounted. A full scale replica of the box has been fitted to the shed at Kurth Kiln, made and painted by Henk Bouck under the supervision of ex PMG officer John Waghorn beenak, post office

Yields information about the City of Ballaarat the time of the Mayor's report to the City Council, about the events, industry, transport and other issues within the City.Photocopy of part of City of Ballaarat's Mayor's Report for 1970 - 1971. Originals held in the Ballarat Library. Seven pages covering trams, railways, closure of tram system, Ballarat transportation study, Caledonian bridge project, duplication of Western Highway, PMG/telephone system, with many photos of Ballarat's trams.trams, tramways, city of ballaarat, trams, railways, civic history

Kodak Ektachrome slide, white cardboard mount, of VR No. 50 approaching or arriving at Sandringham Railway Station on 23/10/1955. Photograph by Keith Kings. Tram has three individual Robur Tea advertisements mounted on the roof. Note the four red PMG telephone boxes on the station forecourt.On top of slide is photographers stamp and slide no K(c)(58). On sides are letters "23/10/55'. On base are words 'V.R. 50 approaching Sandringham Railway Station".tramways, trams, vr, sandringham, tram 50

Photo of Ballarat tram No. 26 at the Sebastopol terminus with the Royal Mail Hotel in the background. Tram waiting for departure, has a briquette roof advertisement. A Fosters Lager ad board on hotel. Note PMG phone box by Milk Bar. Kodak cardboard mount slide, taken Mark Plummer, December 1968.tramways, trams, sebastopol, royal mail hotel, tram 26

The relatively large battery charger is in a metal cabinet that has dials and switches on the face. It was used by the PMG to charge radio telephone batteries between the 1960s and 1990s. Cape Schanck Lightstation also has a battery charger that is part of a set of items associated with the electric operation of the lighthouse Meets first level threshold.Battery charger encased in a large metal cabinet, with black dials, with white faces & switches on either side of the front of the cabinet. Makers label as bottom of cabinet. Some staining." Constant Potential Rectifier....."

This was used by PMG technicians in Orbost from 1957. These strainers were used until the end of open aerial routes which were phased out over many years at a guess right into the 1980’s. They were a standard and necessary issue device for any linesman working on open aerial routes. A leather strap with metal fittings. It consists of two flat steel surfaces operated by a lever action to grip the wire without causing damage.pmg telephone communication wire-strainer wire-tensioner telecommunications

Documents; Bundle of documents tied with string, Cert of Inspection for Boiler, Electricity Agreement, Scrip Certificates, Commonwealth Bank Pass Book for (pounds)10 deposit for PMG charges, Lease Agreement, Name change from Big Hill North N.L., Lease agreement Tennant Creek, Insurance documents, Rules. Legal Opinion Document. Golden Carshalton N.L.MCCOLL RANKIN & STANISTREETorganization, business, golden carshalton nl, mccoll rankin & stanistreet

Yields information about the correspondence between the PMG and the SEC re installation of a service in Albert St.Letter from the Postmaster General's Department, Ballarat Divisional Engineer's Office, dated 27-8-1957 about the installation of a 4" conduit under tram lines in Albert St. On white quarto paper. Has receival stamp, and others notes. See Reg Item 4953 for copy of response.Has receival stamp, and others notes. in blue and red ink.trams, tramways, letters, sec, tram track, pmg

Yields information about the correspondence that was involving damage to the Charing cross bridge in Bendigo and responsibilities for repair.Memo with attached letter dated 1/5/191, titled "Tramways - Tracks over bridges, culverts etc." regarding repairs to the Bendigo Creek Bridge at Charing Cross and responsibility of costs for repairs - SEC or City of Bendigo. Letter from Dooley and Breen Solicitors, dated 26/4/1951 regarding responsibilities, refer to original agreements. Was pinned the top left hand corner.Has initials in ink.trams, tramways, letters, sec, tram track, pmg

L. Kelly Boot Repairer was located at 308 Barkly Street, Ararat, now the current site of Ararat Tyre Power (272 Barkly Street, Ararat). Old site in the early 1940s was Mr H. McMillan Garage for motor repairs. The boot repair section was rented by Laurie Kelly, then 308 Barkly Street. After World War 2 it became home of PMGBlack and white photograph of two men wearing aprons and standing at a work bench with tools. A docket featuring a shoe and a business address for L. Kelly Boot Repairer is beneath the photo.Ron Kelly, Laurie Kelly

This honour board commemorates Victorian Postmaster General's Department workers who served in the First World War. A total of 3,726 employees of the Postmaster General's Department enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War. This represented about one in every five of the total number of men employed by the Department. Many other employees volunteered, but were rejected for health or other reasons, whilst men in key positions could not be spared. This board was displayed at the Spirit of ANZAC Centenary Experience, Melbourne, in February 2016.This honour board was produced by the Postmaster-General's Department and passed through its successor entities until donation to the National Communications Museum in 2018. Its provenance is further supported by the supplementary photograph (VH256) held by the Museum which shows the board in production. The board provides a comprehensive list of the names of Postmaster-General staff across various departments, constituting an important resource for genealogical or social history researchers and a focal point for remembrance by fellow communications workers. The style of the board itself is rare, as it was an unusual practice for honour boards to be hand-lettered on paper.Handpainted paper on linen honour board, perspex glazed with a wooden frame."POSTMASTER GENERAL'S DEPARTMENT / VICTORIA" "ROLL OF HONOR / 1914 1918" "FOR / GOD / KING / AND / EMPIRE"|Headings that precede list of names: "CORRESPONDENCE / BRANCH" "CENTRAL EXCHE" "SUBURBAN AND COUNTRY / POST OFFICES" "TELEGRAPH / BRANCH" "ELECTRICAL ENGINEER'S BCH" "MAIL / BRANCH"pmg, postmaster general's department (pmg), world war 1, ww1, postal workers, honour boards, first world war

The Postmaster-General's Department (PMG) was a department of the Australian federal government, established at Federation in 1901, whose responsibilities included the provision of postal and telegraphic services throughout Australia. It was abolished in December 1975 and replaced by the Postal and Telecommunications Department. Telephone calls were transferred through exchanges by manual operators who staffed switchboards throughout the country. The clock was used to time calls in order to levy appropriate charge for telephone usage.The use of manual telephone exchanges played an important role in Australian telecommunications history, not just for day -to-day business and commercial use, but for social connections and communication during emergency. This timer has local significance as it was used at the Wodonga Telephone Exchange.A small clock used by switchboard operators to time calls at the Wodonga Telephone Exchange. Lever on the side operates timier.In centre of clock 'C. of A./P.M.G -50" Insignia of the Junghans Clock Manufacturers At the bottom edge of the time "Made in Germany",telecommunication, wodonga telephone exchange, p.m.g., timer, wodonga