TELEPHONES AND SUBSCRIBER DIRECTORIES

The first Chilbolton Avenue residents to appear in The National Telephone Company's Directory were F A Carter and T Holt in 1911. In the previous year, these two gentlemen were also in the directory, but at their previous addresses (F A Carter at Sleepers Hill and T Holt at Lincolnville). However, the telephone number shown at both addresses was the same, showing that telephone numbers were transferable between addresses.

The entries in 1911 were:

Winchester 422 Carter F. A. (R. N.) Kirtling ho Weeke
Winchester 52 Holt T. Westfield Weeke

The 1912 Directory shows just the same two entries for Chilbolton Avenue. The other four houses on the avenue presumably didn't have telephones at that time.

(Winchester 1 was assigned to the Post Office, Winchester 2 to Mrs Arbuthnot, St. Phillips, Sleepers Hill, and Winchester 3 to the Fire Brigade at the Guildhall).

The model of telephone in use in 1911 was probably the 'Type 2 candlestick' shown above. This model didn't have a dial. The first automated telephone exchange was introduced in 1912, so it would be a number of years before a dialling mechanism became the norm.

The 1910, 1911 and 1912 telephone directories are available on Ancestry (along with some previous years).

There is then a gap of several years (including World War 1) where directories including Winchester are not available.

The next available directory incorporating Winchester is 1920. This contained the following entries:

Winchester 365 Bethune, Lady Sharp Crest Weeke
Winchester 480 Campbell, Mrs G uy Lang ho Weeke
Winchester 422 Carter, Mrs F.A. Kirtling ho Weeke
Winchester 168 Gye Mrs F.S.C Piper's field
Winchester 52 Holt T. Westfield Weeke

The last directory that had a separate Winchester section was 1922. In later years, the Winchester numbers were included within the the Southampton directory listing.

Note - searching the telephone directories on Ancestry is not as easy as most of its other searches. It may be easier to 'browse' (rather than 'search') the Winchester directories for 1910/11/12/20/22. They are only four or five pages long.

The Winchester directories can be found on Ancestry in the 'British Phone Books' section, as follows:

1910 - Metropolitan, Midlands, Southern and Western directory - section 18, page 16; Ancestry reference page 1289 (of 1579).

1911 - Southern directory - section 18, page 15; Ancestry reference page 296 (of 381).

1912 (July) - Metropolitan, Midlands, Southern and Western directory section 18, page 16; Ancestry reference page 1510 (of 1845).

1920 - Norwich / Colchester / Reading / Guildford / St Albans / Brighton / Canterbury / Tunbridge Wells / S directory - section 10, page 51; Ancestry reference page 505 (of 879).

1922 - Norwich / Colchester / Reading / Guildford / St Albans / Brighton and Tunsbridge Wells / Canterbury… directory - section 10, page 48; Ancesrty reference page 540 (of .927)

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