Demonstration Telephone For Schools

'School telephone' in polished wood case, made by the General Post Office, 1921-1940. During the first half of the twentieth century the British Post Office undertook many campaigns to promote the use of telephones. This ‘opened-out’ telephone would have been one of a pair taken round to schools to show pupils how telephones worked and to encourage familiarity in handling them. It was intended to introduce schoolchildren and others to the new automatic telephone system being introduced in the 1930s. It was entirely self contained so did not need a subscriber's line to function.