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Emergency communication has always been one of the key reasons for having a phone. From the very early days, telegraph & telephone companies saw this as one of their selling points and promoted it widely.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, emergency fire call points were installed on streets, initially in London but soon adopted by other towns too. These used telegraph rather than telephone technology, giving a simple on/off indication at the fire station that an alarm had been activated, but allowing no voice communication. Police call points followed, using the newer telephone technology to let callers speak to the station — and let the station call an officer out on the beat, since police at the time didn't carry radios.
Each police force had its own design. Some were little more than a modified garden shed with a phone on the outside for the public and a desk and phone inside for the policeman. Other forces used a pillar design, but the most famous, of course, was the "Tardis" made popular by Doctor Who in 1963 — rumour has it the choice came about because the original series was made on a shoestring budget, and the BBC already had a police kiosk in its props department left over from Dixon of Dock Green.
Ordinary general-purpose kiosks connected to automatic exchanges were typically fitted with a button to call the operator in an emergency, bypassing the need to insert money. In kiosks on manual exchanges, lifting the handset connected you directly to the operator, who would connect you free of charge to the police, fire, or ambulance service on request.
Before the 999 service arrived in 1937, police boxes were a familiar street sight, giving the public a direct line to the local station — and giving the station a way to call officers out on the beat. This one is at The National Telephone Kiosk Collection.
999, not 111
Private subscribers on automatic exchanges could dial the operator by dialling 0, connecting to the "Auto-Manual Board" — a manual switchboard serving one or more local automatic exchanges. But the system couldn't distinguish emergency calls from routine ones, and a method of giving emergency callers priority was clearly needed.
On the morning of 10th November 1935, a fire broke out at 27 Wimpole Street, London, the home of surgeon Dr Philip Franklin. A milkman used the fire telegraph call point on Harley Street to summon the fire brigade. Around the same time, a neighbour, dentist Dr Norman Macdonald, dialled 0 to reach the operator and ask for the fire brigade — but despite several attempts, got no reply. The fire, described by the station officer as "the hottest I have ever known," killed all five occupants of the house. The next day, The Times printed a letter from Dr Macdonald complaining the operator hadn't answered, sparking a public debate.
Inside a Kiosk No. 5 at The National Telephone Kiosk Collection, showing the emergency call button fitted in kiosks on automatic exchanges before 999 existed.
The Postmaster General set up a committee to investigate. In January 1937 it recommended a short code for emergency operator calls: 999. The number had to be standard across every exchange, easy to remember, and dialable from a kiosk without inserting money. To work with the "Director Strowger" automatic exchanges used in London and other big cities, it needed to be three digits.
Numbers beginning with 0 were already used to reach the operator. 1 was avoided, since pulse dialling could easily send a stray "1" to the exchange — from uninsulated overhead wires tapping together in the wind, or from fumbling the switchhook when lifting the handset — ruling out 111 too. Numbers 2 through 8 were already in use for ordinary phone numbers, meaning payphones couldn't tell an emergency call from a normal one, so money would still be needed. That left 9: unused elsewhere, and easy for payphones to recognise and let through without payment.
At the time, no other country had anything like it. Its introduction across all 91 automatic "Director Strowger" exchanges in London on 30th June 1937 was a world first.
A public information film shown in cinemas to promote the 999 service.
Reproduced with kind permission of BT Archives.
In the exchange
999 calls reached the operator at the local "Auto Manual Board" — a manual switchboard serving a group of automatic exchanges. An emergency triggered a hooter and a red light. The early hooter drew complaints from operators that it was too loud and shrill, "likely to cause nervous strain on both day and night telephonists," so a cover was fitted to soften it. Computerised digital exchanges and operator terminals in the 1980s meant operators taking emergency calls could see the caller's address on screen immediately.
National rollout
A year after London's launch, the 999 service reached Glasgow in 1938. National rollout plans were interrupted by the outbreak of war in 1939, then resumed afterward — by 1947 it was available at 600 exchanges. It didn't cover the entire country until the last manual exchanges were replaced with automatic ones in 1976; the last manual exchange in England was converted at Abingdon, Oxfordshire in 1975, and the very last in the UK was at Portree, Scotland, in 1976.
The UK's first mobile phone network (Vodafone) launched in 1985, and 999 became available to mobile users the following year. Operators are given a mobile account holder's details on contract, but a caller's actual location is limited to the transmitter tower ("cell site") the call originated from.