Print

Telephone History of Funen


by Marie Ørstedholm

In 1901, the village of Hjallese on Funen got its first telephone exchange. The small exchange was fitted up in the living room of Anne Slengerich, a gardener’s widow, who besides running the market garden behind the house could now call herself exchange manager. Hjallese Exchange can today be seen at Post & Tele Museum where a corner of the living room with the original switchboard is exhibited.


The first address of Hjallese Exchange was the cooper’s house in Hjallesegade where Anne Slengerich lived with her two daughters, Anna and Emilie, and her foster-daughters, Petra and Johanne. As Anne Slengerich was already very busy in the market garden, it was usually her youngest daughter, 19-year-old Emilie, who looked after the exhange.

A Recycling Exchange

The subscribers’ calls were redirected at a switchboard of the American Gilleland type manufactured at the factory of P. Outzon & Torstenson in Copenhagen in 1885/1886. When it was installed at Hjallese Exchange, it was about 15 years old and had probably been used at another exchange where its capacity had become insufficient due to increased intake of subscribers. The capacity of the switchboard was 15 subscriber lines and that was more than enough for Hjallelse Exchange which had but nine subscribers at the opening time.

The nine subscribers were not the first in Hjallese. In 1893, a subsidiary exchange subordinated to the telephone exchange in Odense had been established in Hjallelse, which until its discontinuation in 1901 had two subscribers. To establish the subsidiary exchange a switching system had most likely been installed at one of the two subscribers’. In the "Directory of Subscribers and Public Stations of the Telephone Companies of Funen" from 1894 the two subscribers are listed as local parish executive officer A. Madsen and machine builder J. Jørgensen, both with subscription number 381 under Odense Exchange.

Telephone for Serious Matters

When Hjallese got its own exchange in 1901, the two subscribers of the subsidiary exchange were moved there. The rest of the subscriber base was found by transferring subscribers from other subsidiary exchanges in the neighbourhood. Among the nine subscribers you now found the cooperative dairy and the paper mill in Dalum, the chicory drying plant in Hjallese, and Stenløse cooperative store. Characteristic of the early history of telephony it was also the independent tradesmen of Hjallese and surroundings who were the first to accept the telephone. It took several decades before the telephone really moved into the private sphere to the benefit of ordinary citizens.

At the time of opening Hjallese Exchange had exchange connection to Odense Exchange and Bellinge Exchange and functioned as "Public Call Station" which meant that a phone was available at the exchange for public use so that the other inhabitants in Hjallelse – for payment – had the possibility of phoning.

Growing Pains

The number of subscribers at Hjallese Exchange increased slowly during the subsequent years. As a continuous increase was anticipated, the first switchboard was replaced with a larger one in 1906. Concurrently with the increasing number of subscribers the exchange also got more lines to other exchanges in the neighbourhood, especially to exchange in Odense. In 1914, Hjallese Exchange had 70 subscribers and seven lines to Odense Exchange, one line to Bellinge Exchange, and another one to Højby Exchange. At the same time the exchange and the Slengerich family had moved to a newly built, larger house in Hjallese.

The year after, in 1915, the story of Hjallese Exchange was coming to an end. At a management meeting in the Municipal Telephone Company of Funen it was decided that Hjallese Exchange should be renamed Dalum Exchange and that a number of subscribers in the Dalum area should be transferred to it. Dalum Exchange kept for the address in Hjallese for some time and became at the same time an annex exchange to Odense Exchange as from that time there were only exchange lines to the exchange in the capital of Funen.

All in the Family

In 1917, Dalum Exchange moved to Dalum town. Anne Slengerich’s daughter Emilie, who had married at that time, became the first manager of Dalum Exchange. She moved into the new exchange building in Dalumvej together with her husband, her children, and her old mother. Dalum Exchange was closed down for good in 1958 when Odense Exchange was automated. The 1285 subscribers of Dalum Exchange at that time were all transferred to the new automated exchange.


Print

All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or ortherwise, whitout the prior written permission of the publisher.