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Bell was granted the US patent on his telephone in 1876, making the world’s first phone call on 10 March that year, and though it was slow to take off, interest in his new machine spread around the globe, with business taking particular note.

As one of the world’s most important industrial centres, Manchester was intrigued by the new technology, and no-one showed more interest than local businessman Charles Moseley.

Charles worked with his father, David, at their India rubber manufacturers. The company was already involved in the production of equipment for the telegraph system and saw the money-making potential in the groundbreaking technology.

Charles Moseley (c) Manchester Image Archives

Indeed, by November 1877, the company had employed engineer William Fereday Bottomley to help exploit the growing business possibilities. So when they received news that the Post Office had taken its first delivery of Bell’s telephones, they knew they had to bring them to Manchester.

On 26 January 1878, a mere 12 days after Bell had demonstrated the telephone to Queen Victoria, the Manchester Weekly Times reported that David Moseley and Sons had installed a telephone system between hardware merchant Thomas Hudson’s offices on Dantzic Street and his furnishing establishment in Shudehill.

A selection of early telephones at MOSI

At the time, in order to install telephones anywhere in the UK, even as a private line, approval from the Post Office was needed as the telephone was regarded as an extension of the telegraph, which the Post Office had taken over in 1870. That meant that apart from the ones Bell himself had used to make his demonstration to the Queen, they were the first telephones to be installed in the UK.

The installation put David Moseley & Sons - along with another local company, Peel Connor - at the forefront of telecommunications in Manchester. They began supplying apparatus to the Post Office, railways and other private companies, designing new technology and producing other equipment under licence, and even made preparations to set up a telephone exchange.

One of Manchester's first telephone exchanges

However, in May 1881, the Lancashire and Cheshire Telephonic Exchange Company was formed and that company purchased the licence from Moseley to stop competition, which meant that their exchange never opened.

It mattered little. By that time, Manchester had been firmly bitten by the phone bug. The first public exchange had opened in Faulkner Street, near where the Chinese Arch now stands, in 1879, meaning that permission for a phone was no longer needed from the Post Office, and more exchanges would follow.

The age of the telephone had truly arrived and Manchester’s place in its history was sealed.