This museum houses a wide collection of telephones and related objects. Visitors can explore on their own and enjoy this fun family outing or school field trip experience.
After public outrage over the disappearance of classic red telephone boxes, BT’s Payphone Division approached Avoncroft about funding an exhibition on their behalf titled Hello Montreal! which features the history and impact of telecom services on various aspects of society.
Manual Telephones
Early manual telephone services required customers to connect their handsets directly to a copper pair connected to a switchboard operated by an operator, with each line connected having one jack with an indicator light above each jack to indicate which number was being dialed. Operators answered customer calls by plugging the ring cord into its respective jack; otherwise they passed them onto an operator in another city who connected it directly with its trunk line leading directly to its destination switchboard or central office.
This collection honors generations of workers who built poles, laid cables, designed technology that transformed communication for us all. Visitors can experience what it was like to use rotary phones before the advent of telecom and learn how the invention of telecom has transformed how we connect. This collection contains numerous artifacts, photographs and records related to telecom.
Switchboards
Reliving telephone technology over the years is easy with our collection. The exhibits bring history alive by inviting visitors to physically interact with them.
NEC defines a switchboard as an assembly of panels, frames and enclosures containing switches, control, measuring, protective, regulating and other equipment that is interconnected by busbars; including associated electrical and mechanical equipment as well as wiring. Switchboards often include current-using equipment like circuit breakers, fuse and ceramic fuses lamps pushbuttons meters and indicators.
Early days of telephony saw people going out and installing poles, burying cables, designing technologies to allow us to communicate across networks. Our collections honor those generations of workers who laid this groundwork, with an amazing exhibit featuring old and vintage switchboards to commemorate them and their contribution.
Mobile Telephones
From early mobiles to an array of cell towers and smartphones, visitors can witness how cellular telephony has developed over time. Cellphones have quickly become the go-to device for personal communication in many countries around the globe.
This exhibit honors those generations of individuals who helped bring telephony to reality – those who installed poles, laid cables, designed telephone systems and managed them; in short, those who helped change our world as it is known today.
This hands-on museum exhibit boasts an extensive collection of artifacts to delight people of all ages. Test your skill with the working switchboard or test out a display telephone to witness first-hand how PBX technology revolutionized business and personal communications, respectively. Children will love exploring interactive displays, background projections and songs while adults will find historic artifacts engaging. Many displays come equipped with QR codes so visitors can connect their smart phone directly with information regarding these pieces – creating an enjoyable learning experience for everyone who comes through its doors!
Electronics
As well as phones, our collection also encompasses an assortment of electronic devices like computers, tablets, printers and much more. In particular, our “Telephone Workshops” serve as an engaging and educational way for young minds to discover electrical engineering through older and newer telephones.
Children of all ages will love taking on the roles of 1920s rotary dial operators or seeing how loudly they can speak on wind-up phones. Novelty phones such as Coke bottles, Hershey’s chocolate bars or Garfield the cat may also be available for guests to try.
Established by retired employees from ED TEL, the museum first opened on December 3, 1987 in Edmonton’s Old Strathcona neighbourhood before moving to its current home at Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre. Boasting an expansive array of equipment such as Alexander Graham Bell’s gallows frame telephone and Thomas A. Watson’s thrumper phone as well as an operational hands-on switchboard, its collections contain many historical pieces dating back over three decades.
