Telegraph and telephone

This exhibition brings together devices for sending messages and for holding conversations over a distance. The telegraph collection includes equipment using the systems of Morse, Baudot and Hughes. These appear within a broader history of telecommunications, framed by industrialisation and the use of electricity in communication.

The telephone collection includes prototypes and examples from successive stages in the technology's development. Its oldest examples draw on Bell's invention, while the display extends to mobile phones from the early 21st century. Between these endpoints are successive generations of telephones, forming a historical survey of devices used for conversation.

The exhibition also includes historical telephone switchboards and teleprinters. Alongside the telephones themselves are equipment used in communication systems and devices for transmitting text.