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CONNECTED EARTH OUR TELECOMMUNICATIONS HERITAGE in Today’S Mobile, Digital World, Quality of Our Places

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CONNECTED EARTH OUR TELECOMMUNICATIONS HERITAGE in Today’S Mobile, Digital World, Quality of Our Places THE JOURNAL TJ 30 NIGEL LINGE NIGEL LINGE On why heritage matters Rugby Radio tuning coil in the Information Age gallery at the Science Museum. CONNECTED EARTH OUR TELECOMMUNICATIONS HERITAGE In today’s mobile, digital world, quality of our places. We recognise that gives the customer confidence in their latest telecommunications impacts while some of today’s achievements may offerings. Children visiting museums and become tomorrow’s heritage our existing galleries can be inspired to consider virtually every aspect of our daily heritage assets are also simply telecommunications as a future career and lives. Such is the pace of change irreplaceable. We believe in encouraging a hence, become the engineers of tomorrow. that we constantly seek news of wider involvement in our heritage, in order Indeed it is often easier to explain the basic the latest technological to ensure that everyone, both today and in principles of telecommunications when the future, has an opportunity to discover demonstrating or explaining heritage development that will transform their connection to those who have come equipment. smart phones into even smarter before.” phones, high definition televisions Heritage however, is fragile for it can be Similarly, English Heritage2 recognises that, easily destroyed through neglect or apathy into ultra high definition ones, 4G “the invention of telecommunications, from and once gone it is very difficult, if not networks into 5G networks and the telegraph to the Internet, has impossible, to recover. the Internet into the Internet of revolutionised society and has produced not Things. The companies that only its own heritage of structures and BT’s unique position artefacts but also new patterns of workplace Within the telecommunications industry, BT provide all of these products and and work styles. The pace of many of these has a unique position not only as the world’s services have to keep innovating developments has been so rapid that much oldest national telecommunications for commercial survival in a of the evidence for those developments is company and former publicly owned regulated and competitive market extremely vulnerable”. corporation but also because it has a statutory obligation to preserve and make place. Our identity is very often reflected in our available as public records its archives from heritage too. Consider the merchandising 1846, when the Electric Telegraph Company In a world that is increasingly driven by what that accompanied the London 2012 was formed, to 1984, when it became a is coming tomorrow, why should we care Olympics; the red telephone kiosk could be privatised company. Indeed those about what happened yesterday, a year ago found everywhere yet these icons of documents, which now form part of a larger or last century? telecommunications heritage are rarely BT Archives, have been awarded used today. When making telephone calls Designated Status by the Arts Council The answer is very simple. Heritage matters. we still talk about ‘dialling’ people even England and included within the UNESCO It can be a force of good for education, though the rotary dial phone disappeared Memory of the World Register in recognition social wellbeing, marketing and even long ago but its image continues to live on in of both their national and international commercial advantage. The Government1 the icons found on our computers, websites significance and importance3. This believes that, “the historic environment is an and smart phones. Companies that have a commitment to heritage is ongoing within asset of enormous cultural, social, economic rich history of innovation often exploit that the privatised BT and is realised through and environmental value. It makes a very when promoting new products, believing their heritage policy4 which is approved by real contribution to our quality of life and the that an association with a past success the BT Board and partnership projects that Volume 8 | Part 4 - 2014 INFORM NETWORK DEVELOP CONNECTED EARTH 31 Figure 3: The Telephone Museum at Milton Keynes Museum (top) and Connecting Manchester Gallery at the Museum of Science and Industry Reproduced with kind permission of the Figure 1: BT Museum, Baynard House, London (1982 -1997) Reproduced with kind permission of BT Archives Museum of Science and Industry have, for example, recently resulted in the two years, managed in partnership with digitisation of a large part of their archives5. museum and archives professionals. The The transition from public corporation to online virtual museum was pioneering at privatised company did however, have an this time and today acts as a repository of impact on how BT managed and preserved historical, technical and social information, its heritage. Prior to privatisation, BT had educational content, oral histories and links established a number of permanent and to the partner museums. temporary displays and small museums at various exchanges throughout the country, The partner museums were chosen on the most notably in Norwich, Taunton, Oxford basis that they already had an established and Leith (Edinburgh). These were ad-hoc in Figure 2: Connected Earth partner museums interest in telecommunications, were nature and were often created through the prepared to enter into a formal agreement efforts of a few enthusiastic engineers and collection of some 40,000 objects and tens with BT for the development of their Institution of British Telecom Engineers of thousands of items of ephemera [1]. If it interpretation brief and transfer of artefacts, (forerunner to the ITP) members. In 1982 BT was no longer viable for a privatised BT to offered a geographic spread and opened its own national museum located at sustain its own museum then a different represented a mix of large, small, Baynard House in London (Figure 1) into and potentially innovative approach was independent and public body organisations. which was amalgamated many of the needed. The funding from BT provided support to collections and artefacts that had been on these partners to establish new galleries or display at its smaller and regionally This came in the form of the Connected refurbish existing ones and to fund dispersed outlets. Whilst this museum Earth project. At the heart of Connected curatorial staff posts to assist with the proved popular with school groups, the site Earth was a virtual, online museum6. This development of their respect offered limited future potential and was then supported by a network of telecommunications collections [2]. ultimately, from a commercial point of view, partnership museums through which BT’s BT decided that a visitor attraction was not a collection of artefacts would be dispersed Formal partnership agreements were signed practical option in which the company could for public display as part of existing or new with the Amberley Museum and Heritage confidently invest and deliver shareholder telecommunications galleries. Those Centre in West Sussex, Avoncroft Museum value. Consequently, BT Museum closed in artefacts that would ultimately be deemed of Historic Buildings in Worcestershire, 1997 and the collection was mothballed. In surplus for these requirements were Milton Keynes Museum, Museum of Science the same year, BT Archives, which was subsequently offered to any registered and Industry in Manchester, Museum of always separate from the museum, moved museum or sold off through a public auction London, National Museums of Scotland in to their new and current headquarters at the held in February 2003. Edinburgh, the Science Museum in London Holborn Telephone Exchange in London. and the Telegraph Museum Porthcurno in Officially launched at BT Tower in April 2002, Cornwall, as summarised and shown in The formation of Connected Earth Connected Earth thus became a national, Table 1 (see next page) and Figure 2. These As a privatised company, BT had acquired a but distributed collection, endowed by BT were complemented by BT Archives and the London-based museum, an artefact and funded with a budget of £6 million over Institute of Telecommunications THE JOURNAL TJ THE JOURNAL TJ 32 NIGEL LINGE Professionals whose members have over establishment of the national telephone Radio Station transmitter GBR which now the years played a critical role in the kiosk collection at Avoncroft Museum of takes centre stage at the newest gallery Connected Earth project, particularly the Historic Buildings which grew from an initial opened by a Connected Earth partner, dispersal process. three to 32 kiosks. namely Information Age at the Science Museum. Indeed BT continues to assist in During its 10 years, Connected Earth proved Working in partnership has enabled a unique identifying and securing key objects for extremely successful. All partner museums sharing of expertise, provided a much closer partner collections and is highly regarded opened new or refurbished galleries inter-working between BT and the museum within the museum sector not only for its promoting and celebrating sector and greatly improved the ability to heritage policy but also for the very thorough telecommunications. These include as identify and secure the preservation of key process it went through for the disposal and examples, the telephone museum at Milton telecommunications artefacts that were dispersal of its major artefact collection. By Keynes, the Connecting Manchester gallery scheduled for decommissioning or disposal. engaging with the telecommunications at the Museum of Science and Industry One of the largest such
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