In
1901 the various British colonies in Australia were federated into the Commonwealth
of Australia. A number of new Federal Government Departments were formed to
take over responsibility for national issues. One such was the Postmaster General's
Department, which was given responsibility for telephones, telegraphs, and mail.
Its commercial body was the Australian Post Office, although this name was not
widely adopted before the 1950s.
They took over a wide range of telephones from the various State administrations and set about rationalising them to gain the benefits of bigger supply contracts and simplified spare parts and maintenance. By about 1914 the range had been reduced to the point that a list of the remaining "standard" phones could now be issued. Each phone was assigned a Tele number.
Left: Gustav Kopsch, first Chief Mechanic of the PMG Department.
Left: Telephone Workshops, Sydney , 1912
After World War 1, the APO examined the range of phones they had and started looking for economies. They had already decided on the British Ericsson N2500 to replace the Commonwealth Ericsson. The "tin box" desk phones showed promise, but they were being replaced by the new bakelite phones. The BPO trialled a model and the APO soon adopted it as well. The APO also encouraged local manufacture of phones. The Australian telephone industry got off to a rather shaky start, but local companies AWA and STC soon picked up on the technology and were able to produce many parts locally. In return, the PMG Workshops cooperated closely with them and shared development of new technologies. The APO increasingly awarded contracts to the local firms.
The numbering system was changed in the 1930s when the first bakelite phones were introduced. The British had designated their first phones the 100 Series, and this was also adopted in Australia. A similar pattern was being adopted overseas , and this was to later cause some confusion in the Australian series among collectors. In times of emergency and short supply , phones were sourced from the United States to meet demand. Their U.S. series numbers have sometimes been incorrectly substituted as Australian series numbers.
The APO always tried to encourage local manufacture, and allocated contracts on a limited competition basis to achieve this. Contracts were awarded to AWA, STC, TMC and Ericssons in large amounts to build up and preserve Australian expertise and capacity. This policy worked, and gradually the APO was able to help develop a large Australian manufacturing industry.
The
Australian telephone Series numbers followed the British series numbers fairly
closely, and it was only in the 1960s that the two parted company. Australia skipped
the British 700 series completely (although some were imported for use on PAXs)
and went to the locally-developed 800 series.
In 1975, to try to meet post-World War 2 development, the telephone division was split off into a new operation called Telecom Australia.
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