British Bakelite 300 Series Telephones were produced between 1937 and 1959. They were the very first British bakelite phones to contain an internal ringer/bell. These superb antique telephones with classic hard lines and sharp edges were based on an earlier Ericsson design and were developed by The British Post Office working with the Ericsson Telephone Company.
Originally 300 series telephones had braided cords between the handset and the main body, although a lot of theses braided cords were later swapped out for more reliable plastic curly cords.
Many 300 series telephones had a drawer to store key telephone numbers, however due to potential problems with the draw contents jamming the bell the drawers were routinely replaced over time by a blank drawer front. Over the years these blanking plates tended to be damaged by people prising out what they thought was a jammed drawer.
All of the main UK manufacturers (such as Siemens and GEC) produced the 300 series telephones for the BPO (later to become the General Post Office GPO) and for private internal systems.
These telephones were produced in black (standard) ivory (rare) red (very rare) and green (extremely rare).
This series of telephone continued to be produced for nearly 30 years and represents the panicle of 20th century British telephone design.
The most popular 300 series telephones were:
332- Standard telephone 312- As 332 but with a chrome “call exchange” button for shared service working 314- As 332 but with three chrome buttons “bell on” “bell off” and “call exchange”
UK Manufactures of 300 series telephones ATM (Automatic Telephone Manufacturing) Company British Ericsson GEC Siemens Brothers
Outside of the UK AWA (Amalgamated Wireless Australia ) made in Australia AEP (Automatica Electrica Portuguesa) made in Portugal ITI (Indian Telephone Industries) made in India Telrad made in Israel
300 series Telephones made outside of the UK were often of inferior quality, particularly the Indian ITI telephones.