Insulators from Great Britain

It has always seemed rather strange to me that if a collector wants to bring insulators home from England, chances are he must go to the Post Office to make his first contact. In fact, a good number of these insulators (porcelain) are to be found with the incuse letters G.P.O. alone or in combination with either of the following:                                    
              

I do not know the significance of the markings, the hand or the crest; but I would assume they are the mark of the manufacturers who made them for G.P.O. (General Post Office). 

Alex Burnett of Alberta, Canada, recently sent me quite a bit of information on English insulators, which I would like to share with you. It also explains how the Post Office got into the act. This is taken from a brochure put out by the Post Office Telecommunications Museum in Oxford, Oxford being a city 57 miles northwest of London. 

Telegraphs 

The practicability of sending messages by the electric telegraph was demonstrated in 1837, and the first British telegraph company was formed in 1846. At this time the telegraphs were run by private companies and even by 1866 there was no great spread of telegraph offices throughout the United Kingdom. The Telegraph Act of 1868 empowered the Postmaster General to acquire the country's inland telegraphs and two years later, in 1870, these were transferred to State ownership. 

Little is known about the early days of telegraphy in Oxford. Occasionally references can be found in the City's newspapers. Jackson's Oxford Journal on 4th January 1873 refers to speeches by the City's two M.P.'s being 'flashed along electric wires direct from Oxford to various parts of the country...' On this occasion 33,000 words were transmitted. 

Telephones 

The first electric appliance to which the name 'telephone' was given was invented by Philipp Reis in 1861. This was more successful in transmitting music than speech. Reis's invention proved to be of no practical use and it was left to Professor Alexander Graham Bell to produce in 1876 the first instruments over which an articulate sentence could be spoken. Bell is thus generally credited with the invention of the telephone although others contributed greatly to produce the reliable instrument we use today.

On 26th January 1878 Jackson's Oxford Journal reported that telephones made by an Oxford man had been installed by the Fire Brigade. These were probably fitted in 1877 the date given in A Record of Fires in Oxford AD 979 to 1870' -- less than two years after Bell had demonstrated his successful apparatus. 

The first telephone exchange in the United Kingdom was opened in Coleman Street, London, in August 1879. Seven years later, in 1886, the South of England Telephone Company Ltd., opened an exchange at Cornmarket Street, Oxford. The company was taken over by the National Telephone Company Ltd, in 1890 which provided a larger exchange at 5 & 6 Magdalen Street in 1895. 

In 1892 the Post Office took over the telephone trunk system throughout the United Kingdom and by 1895 had established a trunk exchange at the Head Post Office in St. Aldates to deal with trunk calls from the National Telephone Company's subscribers exchange in Magdalen Street. 

Samuel Finlay Breese Morse	Sir Charles Tilston Bright
Philipp Reis	Prof. Alexander Graham Bell

On the 1st January 1912 the Post Office took over the National Telephone Company Ltd., Oxford subscribers' exchange coming under Post Office administration together with the trunk exchange. 

The first automatic telephone exchange in the United Kingdom was opened at Epsom in 1912. Fourteen years later, in December 1926, Oxford's first automatic exchange was brought into service at Pembroke Street. Subscribers could then dial their own local calls but trunk calls still had to be made via the manual board which the new exchange incorporated. As the number of subscribers connected to the exchange grew it became necessary to install satellite exchanges in the suburbs and in 1929 small automatic exchanges were opened at Cowley and Headington. These were followed by other small automatic exchanges at Summertown in 1931 and Boars Hill in 1937. 

By 1950 the demand for telephone service urged the need for a new exchange and plans were drawn up for the present exchange which was opened by the Postmaster General. the Rt. Hon. Ernest Marples, M.P. on 27th April 1959. Since then several additions have been made to the equipment. Subscriber Trunk Dialing was introduced in May 1961.

Telecommunications Museum

A collection of telecommunications exhibits initiated by the present curator in 1963 has grown to such an extent that additional accommodation has had to be found on two occasions since. Exhibited is a selection of telegraph and telephone apparatus arranged to illustrate the development of telecommunications. One of the earliest exhibits is an acoustic sounder with single needle, often called 'Bright's Bell'. This was developed by Charles Tilston Bright in 1852.

There are some working exhibits including two early teleprinters, a rural automatic exchange dating from the 1930's, and a pre-STD call-office telephone.

A library of historical telecommunications books, photographs and data is also maintained. 

R. A. J. Earl

Large Image (267 Kb)
Oxford Trunk Telephone Exchange. c. 1920

Large Image (254 Kb)
Oxford Telegraph Room.  c. 1920

Large Image (155 Kb)

Following are some old pictures Alex included along with the above information., These were given to him by courtesy of the Post Master General. 

Changing slings on overhead line, London, 1905.

A lineman at work atop an English telephone pole.

Overhead line attached to tree, close-up view.

Large Image (406 Kb) Avenue Exchange, 1907.

The picture and the drawing below show an unembossed British glass insulator that Alex has in his collection. This is a new one to me, and a very attractive one! The drawing was made by Jack Tod from a shadow drawing that Alex had sent to me. The glass is clear with a tint of green.

Quoting directly from his letter, Alex says: "I obtained the British glass insulator from the London Telephone Museum after they had dismantled the museum and put all their exhibits in storage. Inside the pinhole I found a Post Office memorandum with the following inscription written on the back: 'Post Office glass insulator circa 1870'."

The next picture shows (looking from left to right) the British glass insulator, a red porcelain British rail insulator, and a brown and a white porcelain each marked G.P.O. 

The brown and the white insulators are a fairly common sight to collectors, but the red railroad insulator is truly unique! It is a bright fire engine red. Alex obtained it from a friend in England, who, in turn, got it with the help of a signaling engineer near Grimsby.

Now to digress just a bit, in order to tie in with some information that Jack Tod had in his Porcelain News column way back six years ago in August of 1975. It is about Allied Insulators Ltd. of England, and this, too, came from Alex Burnett. I'm including a reprint of this here because it tells about insulator manufacturers who may have made insulators for G.P.O., and it shows the Bullers trade mark which likely appears on some of the English porcelains in your collection. Bullers Ltd. was one of the two companies that merged to form the present Allied Insulators Ltd., Taylor Tunnicliff and Co. being the other. Also, since one of the divisions of Allied Insulators Ltd. makes insulators specifically suitable for railroad electrification, it is possible that this was the source of the red rail insulator! 

ALLIED INSULATORS LIMITED was formed in 1959 by the amalgamation of Bullers Limited with Taylor Tunnicliff & Co. Limited. two of the largest electrical porcelain manufacturers in the United Kingdom. It was a fitting merger, for the history of each company follows a remarkably similar pattern of progress and technical development during the last 100 years. 

The story starts in the year 1840 with the foundation of a small family pottery business by Mr. John Buller in the pleasant Devon village of Bovey Tracy. The main products of this firm were "spurs and stilts" or kiln furniture, an important accessory in the firing of pottery ware even today. and a ready market existed for these items in North Staffordshire where the large English potteries were already established. It was not surprising. therefore, that after a few years of development, this family business was, in 1865, moved from Devon to Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent to be at the centre of the pottery industry. 

With the coming of the Electrical Age, the company, using considerable foresight, commenced production of electrical insulators, and by 1868 was established as a supplier of insulators complete with ironwork. 

Development continued rapidly and the Company. working in close cooperation with an Electrical Engineering firm of the time, was associated in the design and development of many low tension insulators. The specification for the screw thread inside a telephone insulator. together with the supporting spindle was developed by co-operation between the Company and Mr. J. H. Cordeaux, after whom the screw thread is named. It is interesting to note that this specification is still in use today. Also a telephone insulator designated T.129 was first supplied to the British Post Office in 1887 and apart from slight modification, this same insulator design is still in current use throughout the world. 

In 1885 the metal foundry of Jobson Bros. at Tipton in Staffordshire was purchased. and the new Company, Buller Jobson & Co. Limited was formed. Then in 1890 the firm became a public company and the name was changed to Bullers Limited.

The other branch of the family was established in 1867 when an engineer by the name of Thomas Taylor and a potter, William Tunnicliff, went into partnership. They combined the skills of potting with that of engineering, to specialise in the manufacture of pottery having a high degree of dimensional accuracy, a feature uncommon in general pottery at that time. They opened a small factory at Shelton, near Hanley. Stoke-on-Trent, for the manufacture of ceramic door furniture, handles, lamp containers, hermetically sealed jars. etc. All items were associated with metal parts thus requiring a certain amount of precision in production. It was not long before the factory at Shelton became too small and production was transferred to larger premises at Eastwood, Hanley. After the retirement of William Tunnicliff in 1895 a Private Limited Company was formed. 

It was towards the end of the 19th century, whilst the electrical age was still in its infancy. that both Companies embarked upon the specialised production of insulators. Steady progress followed. Bullers Limited built a new factory at Milton, just outside the Potteries, and production started in 1920. Taylor Tunnicliff & Co. Limited erected a new factory at Stone in Staffordshire where they commenced manufacture in 1922. In 1926, a factory was obtained by Taylor Tunnicliff at Longton, in the Potteries, and this plant was utilised for the production of ceramic refractory formers for electric fires, cookers, and other heating appliances. Yet another factory was obtained in 1928 in Hanley, known as Electric and Ordance Accessories & Co. Limited, where small turned ware and die-pressed insulators were produced.

Both the new factories at Milton and Stone were designed for production of high voltage insulators, and development and enlargement has been necessary at both plants during the passing years in order to keep abreast of the demand for ever larger insulators. A series of extensions, which took place at Stone and were completed in 1951, doubled the original output whilst the most recent expansion programme at Milton was only completed in 1967, after the two companies had amalgamated. 

Alex also enclosed the above postal cancellation used by the company, and it should be of interest to collectors because of their trademark in it. 

The logo used by Allied Insulators Ltd. is shown at the right. Keep this in mind, since it wouldn't be unusual for insulators to turn up some day with a marking based on this logo.

THE FOUNDERS of Allied Insulators Limited were pioneers in the manufacture of electro-ceramics, and a vast resource of knowledge and experience extending back over more than 100 years has been accumulated. The amalgamation of Bullers Limited with Taylor Tunnicliff & Co. Ltd. enabled this knowledge to be shared, with the result that the new company is well equipped to meet the demand for insulators needed for the ever higher transmission voltages that are being developed in all parts of the world. 

In the early 1970's a programme of standardization and modernization was introduced and this involved the closing of two of the older factories in Hanley. A new plant was acquired at Chessington near London, where special ceramic components were produced for industrial purposes. Later it was found necessary to move this latest plant to a new and larger site at Ruabon, near Wrexham on the border with Wales. At Ruabon, Allied Insulators Limited are able to specialise upon the manufacture of technical ceramic components which modern industry is demanding.

Allied Insulators Limited now produce ceramic components in many shapes and sizes to meet the varying needs of industry. The range extends from items measuring only a few millimetres, to insulators large enough to satisfy the ever increasing demands of the high voltage electrical systems being installed throughout the world. 

The Group now controls five ceramic factories where specialised manufacture can be undertaken to meet the various requirements existing within industry for ceramic components. There is also a foundry for malleable and grey iron fittings. 

The production of such a wide variety of components calls for an equally wide range of skills and equipment. To ensure maximum efficiency and specialization Allied Insulators Limited have divisionalised their activities into four groups as follows :----

• Allied Insulators High Tension Products. 
• Allied Insulators Low Tension Products. 
• Bullers Engineering.
• Unilator Technical Ceramics. 

Allied Insulators Limited is well equipped to maintain their position in the vanguard of the manufacture of electrical insulators and other ceramic components, and to offer a world wide service to industry.

Following is a picture showing six white porcelains from my own collection, which either have the incuse words BULLERS LTD. LONDON, or which bear the Bullers trademark enclosed in a circle with the words "Bullers Ltd." included.

It is very likely that insulators marked with "Bullers Ltd." on them were manufactured before the merger in 1959; but that afterward Allied Insulators Ltd. continued to use the Bullers trade mark, but dropped the name "Bullers" and substituted "Made in England".