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The Telephone

The complete first Brighton directory

By David Fisher

Photo:Page 7. Assuming numbers were allocated sequentially, it's interesting to see who subscribed first

Photo:Page 9. Auctioneers and estate agents were the second most common subscribers

Photo:Page 10. Coal merchants were the most numerous early telephone subscribers

The first Brighton telephone directory was a 16-page supplement to the 1885 London directory. At that time the telephone service had been available for only three years. The country's first trunk line, linking Brighton and London, opened in 1884.

Interestingly, 81 years later, in 1966, the Post Office's Brighton area telephone directory was the first to include a classified business section called 'Yellow Pages'.

This page was added on 10/07/2008.