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ASSESSMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RECOMMENDATION TO THE HERITAGE COUNCIL

Name: Collingwood Telephone ExchangeHermes Number: 200225

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NAME COLLINGWOOD TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

LOCATION 2-16 NORTHUMBERLAND STREET COLLINGWOOD, YARRA CITY

HERITAGE OVERLAY NO: N/A

FILE NUMBER: FOL/17/2736

HERMES NUMBER: 200225

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RECOMMENDATION TO THE HERITAGE COUNCIL: That the place NOT be included in the Victorian Heritage Register under Section 32 (1)(b) of the

Heritage Act 1995.

TIM SMITH OAMExecutive DirectorRecommendation Date: 19 May 2017

This recommendation report has been issued by the Executive Director, Heritage Victoria under s.32 of the Heritage Act 1995. It has not been considered or endorsed by the Heritage Council of Victoria.

NOMINATED EXTENTAll of the place known as the Collingwood Telephone Exchange, Telstra Corporation exchange site shaded on the attached diagram. This includes the 1922 1 & 2-storey red brick buildings fronting Wellington and Glasgow Streets and the later addition of the 1975 Brutalist concrete exchange buildings to the rear of the site, with sufficient curtilage to maintain unobstructed public views of the building.

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange was nominated on the basis that it satisfies three of the Heritage Council’s criteria for inclusion in the Victoria Heritage Register (Criterion A, D and F).

AERIAL PHOTO OF NOMINATED EXTENT

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RESPONSE SUMMARY

It is the view of the Executive Director that this place should not be included in the Victorian Heritage Register for the reasons outlined in this report.

RECOMMENDATION REASONS

REASONS FOR NOT RECOMMENDING INCLUSION IN THE VICTORIAN HERITAGE REGISTER [s.34A(2)]

Following is the Executive Director's assessment of the place against the tests set out in The Victorian Heritage Register Criteria and Thresholds Guidelines (2014).

CRITERION A

Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION A

The place/object has a CLEAR ASSOCIATION with an event, phase, period, process, function, movement, custom or way of life in Victoria’s cultural history.

PlusThe association of the place/object to the event, phase, etc IS EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the

place/object and/or in documentary resources or oral history.Plus

The EVENT, PHASE, etc is of HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE, having made a strong or influential contribution to Victoria.

Executive Director’s Response

The establishment, expansion and operation of telephone and internet networks is a process of historical importance and has made a strong and influential contribution to Victoria.

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange is a place which has a clear association with this process.

The association of the Collingwood Telephone Exchange to this process throughout the twentieth century is evident in the physical fabric of the Exchange buildings and equipment, and in documentary resources.

Criterion A is likely to be satisfied.

STEP 2: A BASIC TEST FOR DETERMINING STATE LEVEL SIGNIFICANCE FOR CRITERION A

The place/object allows the clear association with the event, phase etc. of historical importance to be UNDERSTOOD BETTER THAN MOST OTHER PLACES OR OBJECTS IN VICTORIA WITH SUBSTANTIALLY THE

SAME ASSOCIATION.


Buildings which housed telephone exchanges and which were constructed and commissioned in each decade since the 1880s remain throughout Victoria.

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange contains an illustrative combination of 1920s, pre- and post-WWII and 1970s architectural solutions to housing the functions of an inner suburban telephone exchange.

However, the association of the process of the establishment, expansion and operation of telephone and internet networks with a particular place can be better understood at a large number of other local telephone exchange buildings throughout the State.

These include the:

Malvern Automatic Telephone Exchange and Post Office;

Windsor Post Office and Telephone Exchange building complex; and

Hawthorn Post Office and telephone exchange building complex.

See ‘Comparisons’ section.

Criterion A is not likely to be satisfied at the State level.

CRITERION B

Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria’s cultural history.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION B

The place/object has a clear ASSOCIATION with an event, phase, period, process, function, movement, custom or way of life of importance in Victoria’s cultural history.

PlusThe association of the place/object to the event, phase, etc IS EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the

place/object and/or in documentary resources or oral history.Plus

The place/object is RARE OR UNCOMMON, being one of a small number of places/objects remaining that demonstrates the important event, phase etc.

ORThe place/object is RARE OR UNCOMMON, containing unusual features of note that were not widely

replicatedOR

The existence of the class of place/object that demonstrates the important event, phase etc is ENDANGERED to the point of rarity due to threats and pressures on such places/objects.


The Collingwood Telephone Exchange is an example of the ‘telephone exchange’ class of cultural place within the broad ‘public utility buildings’ place type.

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange is one of at least 400 existing telephone exchanges in Victoria, and one of about 120 of those substantial ones which Telstra describes as ‘nodal point’ exchanges. The buildings which comprise the Collingwood Telephone Exchange are typical of telephone exchange buildings in Victoria across each of the periods in which they were constructed – and the features of the exchange at Collingwood appear in many other exchanges too. The Collingwood Telephone Exchange is not a rare, uncommon or endangered example of its class of place

Criterion B is not likely to be satisfied.

CRITERION C

Potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Victoria’s cultural history.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION C

The: visible physical fabric; &/or

documentary evidence; &/or oral history,

relating to the place/object indicates a likelihood that the place/object contains PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of historical interest that is NOT CURRENTLY VISIBLE OR UNDERSTOOD.

PlusFrom what we know of the place/object, the physical evidence is likely to be of an INTEGRITY and/or

CONDITION that it COULD YIELD INFORMATION through detailed investigation.


The Collingwood Telephone Exchange does not have the potential to yield information that is not currently visible or understood (such as archaeological information) that will contribute to an understanding of Victoria’s cultural history.

Criterion C is not likely to be satisfied.

CRITERION D

Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places and objects.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION D

The place/object is one of a CLASS of places/objects that has a clear ASSOCIATION with an event, phase, period, process, function, movement, important person(s), custom or way of life in Victoria’s history.

PlusThe EVENT, PHASE, etc is of HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE, having made a strong or influential contribution to

Victoria.Plus

The principal characteristics of the class are EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the place/object.


The Collingwood Telephone Exchange is an example of the ‘telephone exchange’ class of cultural place within the broad ‘public utility buildings’ place type. It has a clear association with the historically important process of the establishment, expansion and operation of telephone and internet networks – a process which has made a strong and influential contribution to Victoria.

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange buildings do exhibit characteristics that are typical of this class of place, including staff facilities, nodal and local phone switching equipment, underground cable chamber tunnels leading to an exchange distribution frame, a state mobile radio room, extensive air-conditioning equipment, banks of large lead-acid batteries, an automatic diesel generator, and fuel tanks.

Criterion D is likely to be satisfied.

STEP 2: A BASIC TEST FOR DETERMINING STATE LEVEL SIGNIFICANCE FOR CRITERION D

The place/object is a NOTABLE EXAMPLE of the class in Victoria (refer to Reference Tool D).


The buildings at the Collingwood Telephone Exchange are in good to fair condition externally, and good condition internally. The 1922 building is largely intact and displays characteristics that are for the most part unchanged from the Collingwood Telephone Exchange’s initial period of development and use. However, a number of telephone exchanges across Victoria exhibit similar qualities, and the intactness, integrity and condition of many of those other exchanges surpass that of the Collingwood Telephone Exchange. Furthermore, the interiors of the original Collingwood Telephone Exchange building have been substantially altered since it was first commissioned, and none of its original telephone switching or other plant equipment remains.

For these reasons, the Collingwood Telephone Exchange cannot be described as a notable example of this class in Victoria. It is not fine, highly intact, influential or pivotal.

Criterion D is not likely to be satisfied at the State level.

CRITERION E

Importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION E

The PHYSICAL FABRIC of the place/object clearly exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics.


The physical fabric of the Collingwood Telephone Exchange buildings do clearly exhibit some particular aesthetic characteristics. The 1922 red-brick building and its later two-storey extension is an example of the Australian ‘Early Commonwealth Vernacular’ architectural style, characterised by structures with gabled, hipped or saw-toothed roofs twinned with domestic features (often with Arts and Crafts overtones). Also, the 1970s off-form concrete buildings display some Brutalist style characteristics.

Criterion E is likely to be satisfied.

STEP 2: A BASIC TEST FOR DETERMINING STATE LEVEL SIGNIFICANCE FOR CRITERION E

The aesthetic characteristics are APPRECIATED OR VALUED by the wider community or an appropriately-related discipline as evidenced, for example, by:

critical recognition of the aesthetic characteristics of the place/object within a relevant art, design, architectural or related discipline as an outstanding example within Victoria; or

wide public acknowledgement of exceptional merit in Victoria in medium such as songs, poetry, literature, painting, sculpture, publications, print media etc.


The Collingwood Telephone Exchange’s aesthetic characteristics have not received critical recognition within art, design, architectural or related discipline as an outstanding example within Victoria, or received wide public acknowledgement of exceptional merit in Victoria in medium such as songs, poetry, literature, painting, sculpture, publications, print media etc.

Criterion E is not likely to be satisfied at the State level.

CRITERION F

Importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION F

The place/object contains PHYSICAL EVIDENCE that clearly demonstrates creative or technical ACHIEVEMENT for the time in which it was created.

PlusThe physical evidence demonstrates a HIGH DEGREE OF INTEGRITY.


The Collingwood Telephone Exchange contains physical evidence – a 1922 building, constructed specifically to house Victoria’s fifth (Melbourne’s fourth) automatic telephone exchange – that is associated with technical achievement at the place for the time in which it was created.

Although the Collingwood Telephone Exchange’s 1922 switching and other equipment is no longer used and has been removed from the site, the Exchange buildings themselves are substantially intact and do demonstrate a good degree of integrity.

Criterion F is likely to be satisfied.

STEP 2: A BASIC TEST FOR DETERMINING STATE LEVEL SIGNIFICANCE FOR CRITERION F

The nature &/or scale of the achievement is OF A HIGH DEGREE or ‘beyond the ordinary’ for the period in which it was undertaken as evidenced by:

critical acclaim of the place/object within the relevant creative or technological discipline as an outstanding example in Victoria; or

wide acknowledgement of exceptional merit in Victoria in medium such as publications and print media; or

recognition of the place/object as a breakthrough in terms of design, fabrication or construction techniques; or

recognition of the place/object as a successful solution to a technical problem that extended the limits of existing technology; or

recognition of the place/object as an outstanding example of the creative adaptation of available materials and technology of the period.


The nature and scale of the technical achievement at the Collingwood Telephone Exchange is not of a high degree or beyond the ordinary for the period in which it was undertaken. It is a common telephone exchange building, standard for 1922, and all of the 1922 equipment has been removed.

Criterion F is not likely to be satisfied at the State level.

CRITERION G

Strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons. This includes the significance of a place to indigenous people as part of their continuing and developing cultural traditions.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION G

Evidence exists of a DIRECT ASSOCIATION between the place/object and a PARTICULAR COMMUNITY OR CULTURAL GROUP.

(For the purpose of these guidelines, ‘COMMUNITY or CULTURAL GROUP’ is defined as a sizable group of persons who share a common and long-standing interest or identity).

PlusThe ASSOCIATION between the place/object and the community or cultural group is STRONG OR SPECIAL, as evidenced by the regular or long-term use of/engagement with the place/object or the enduring ceremonial,

ritual, commemorative, spiritual or celebratory use of the place/object.


The Collingwood Telephone Exchange does not have a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group.

Criterion G is not likely to be satisfied.

CRITERION H

Special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Victoria’s history.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION H

The place/object has a DIRECT ASSOCIATION with a person or group of persons who have made a strong or influential CONTRIBUTION to the course of Victoria’s history.

PlusThe ASSOCIATION of the place/object to the person(s) IS EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the place/object

and/or in documentary resources and/or oral history.Plus

The ASSOCIATION: directly relates to ACHIEVEMENTS of the person(s) at, or relating to, the place/object; or

relates to an enduring and/or close INTERACTION between the person(s) and the place/object.


The 1922 red-brick Collingwood Telephone Exchange building was designed by an unknown architect within the Commonwealth Government Department of Works & Railways. It is possible that it was designed by John Smith Murdoch (1862-1945) but Heritage Victoria has not been able to find any evidence that confirms him as its designer. Murdoch was Australia’s first Commonwealth Architect (and later Chief Architect and Director-General of Works) and provided the design inspiration and leadership in this Department until 1929.

By the end of his career Murdoch had been responsible for designing buildings of ‘very many hundreds of every kind, and in value from a quarter of a million pounds downwards’. If direct evidence of Murdoch’s association with the Collingwood Telephone Exchange was to be found, it is also extremely unlikely to show that his interaction with this place was enduring or close.

Criterion H is not likely to be satisfied.

ASSESSMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S ASSESSMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE [s.34A(2)(d)]

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange is a good and intact example of a ‘nodal point’ telephone exchange building but does not possess the qualities, significance or rarity that would elevate this place to a threshold of State significance.

DESCRIPTION The Collingwood Telephone Exchange reflects four building phases (1922, 1920s/30s, 1950s/60s and 1970s). It is a complex of adjoining one and two storey buildings on a site of approximately 3,100 square metres with frontages to Wellington, Glasgow and Northumberland Streets. It is currently a functioning Telstra Corporation nodal point telephone exchange. The Exchange’s buildings were completed in a number of separate stages. Open areas of ground level carparking are situated at the site’s eastern side and along the central portion of its Northumberland Street boundary

The gable-roofed earliest stage was completed in 1922 and is built to the Wellington and Glasgow Street boundaries at the site’s northwest corner. It features walls of English Bond red brick containing soldier-course bands, and exhibits many characteristics of the Commonwealth Government Department of Works and Railways’ ‘Early Commonwealth Vernacular Style’. The Wellington Street façade of this stage is a single-storey parapeted gable with flanking flat-parapeted ends and angled caps, and contains three large arched window openings. The steel framed multi-paned windows are capped by a continuous cement-rendered and painted horizontal lintel which extends across each arched opening’s springing points. The gable roof of the single-storey 1922 building is clad with painted corrugated steel sheeting. The long Glasgow Street façade of this stage also features brick walls adorned by soldier coursing, slightly-projecting pilasters and regular recesses containing windows and plinth-brick bases that step in response to the street’s gradual west-to-east gentle downhill gradient. Wide eave overhangs offer some protection to the large north-facing windows, the openings of which are also fitted with modern fixed heat-control external steel louvres.

A later two-storey red brick gable-roofed extension abuts the 1922 exchange building’s eastern side. Its roof is clad with terracotta tiles with pitch and eave overhangs similar to those of the 1922 building’s original roofs. The Glasgow Street façade of this extension continues the original building’s architectural language of English Bond brickwork with bands of soldier coursing, slightly-projecting pilasters and recesses containing windows and plinth-brick bases. It is likely that this extension dates from the late 1920s to the late 1930s. The fixed heat-control external steel louvres that have been installed in this extension’s north-facing window openings match those added to the original 1922 building.

Additional and more simplistically detailed single-storey adjoining red face brick extensions cluster along the south side of these buildings. It is likely that these date from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. A single-storey standalone garage building with three separate roller-shutter doors facing Northumberland Street occupies the site’s south-west corner. All of these extensions feature stretcher-bond red face brickwork and low-pitched painted corrugated steel sheet roofs. Underground communications-cable tunnels with floors approximately 6m below ground extend away from the site to the south and west of this collection of red brick buildings.

To the east of the red brick buildings is an adjoining two storey unpainted-concrete building, constructed in two separate stages during the 1970s. Its facades feature expressed structural columns and beams of smooth-faced off-form concrete, and large wall areas of concrete imprinted with timber-board formwork patterns. The second stage’s upper-storey west-facing facade contains three panels of unpainted concrete block infill walls which indicate the portion of the building intended to connect with the exchange’s planned

future eastwards expansion. Its roofs are of galvanised and unpainted clip-fixed steel decking, concealed from street level by concrete parapets to the exterior walls.

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange contains many features that are typical of nodal point exchanges, including staff facilities, nodal and local phone switching equipment arranged in vertical racks separated by aisles for access by staff, the underground cable chamber tunnels leading to distribution frames, a State mobile radio room, banks of large lead-acid batteries, an externally-flued automatic diesel generator, external and internal diesel fuel tanks. There is extensive roof-mounted ventilation and air-conditioning equipment and ductwork. Internally, the walls, fixtures and finishes of the Exchange’s 1922 building and its initial two-storey extension have been substantially altered, although much of the original fabric of these buildings is also evident. No original 1922-era exchange equipment remains at the place.

RELEVANT INFORMATIONLOCAL GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY City of Yarra

HERITAGE LISTING INFORMATION

Heritage Overlay: No

Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Register: No

Other listing: No

HISTORY

Telephony arrives in Victoria

In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated a practical telephone, and published details of it in the Scientific American on 6 October 1877. Enthusiasts in many countries – including Australia – immediately made their own versions of telephone instruments based on Bell’s description in this journal article.

As early as 1877, W J Thomas of the Geelong Customs House experimented with home-made telephones and successfully linked houses in his locality. By means of his telephones and wire, Thomas arranged for the transmission from one house to another of music as well as conversation. Later, Thomas transmitted over longer distances, using a telegraph line between Geelong and Melbourne and on 9 January 1878 between Geelong and Queenscliff.

What appears to have been the first installation of a regular commercial telephone service in Australia came into operation in Melbourne on 2 January 1878. Using locally-made telephones, it linked the head office of hardware importers Messrs McLean Bros & Rigg in Elizabeth Street with their Spencer Street store about 1.2km away. In February 1878 successful experiments were carried out between Melbourne and Ballarat (115km) using telephones made by Mr Challon of the Central Telegraph Office in Melbourne.

However, these early telephones were used for communication between two fixed points, generally also using two telephones – one receiving and the other transmitting.

The invention of Telephone Exchanges

January 1878 saw another substantial advance in the technology of telephones – the opening of the first commercial telephone exchange, in New Haven, Connecticut. The development of the exchange was a logical step. If the existing point-to-point connections had just been extended, then it would mean that each user would need lines running from their own telephone directly to those of all other users they wanted to be able to talk to – a system of mind-boggling impracticality. For instance, although five telephones could be

connected to each other with just ten wires, 1,000 telephones would require nearly half a million criss-crossing wires.

Instead, a telephone exchange required only one single set of connections between each subscriber’s own instrument and the exchange – a central switching office through which they could be connected with any other ‘subscriber’ to that exchange. All early exchanges were ‘manual’, employing operators – mostly young women – who, on request, connected the caller’s line to another line and noted the call for later billing.

Manual telephone exchanges in Victoria

Australia’s first manual telephone exchange was opened in Melbourne in August 1880. It was located in the old Stock Exchange building at 367 Collins Street, now the site of a 33-storey office tower. It was privately owned and operated by the Melbourne Telephone Exchange Company. In 1884, the operations of the Company, by then known as the Victorian Telephone Exchange Company, had grown considerably and were transferred to a new ‘Central’ exchange at 25-29 Wills Street, Melbourne.

Private ownership of this company continued until 1887 when it was bought out by the Victorian Colonial Government. At the time of the Government take-over in September 1887, there were 887 subscribers and the Company had 21 employees. The following year the number of subscribers was 1,462.

When the six Australian colonies federated in 1901, there were 32,767 telephones in use. Each of the colonies had, until then, built up its own telephone services. But Federation brought all telecommunications and postal services under the control of the Postmaster-General’s Department of Australia (often colloquially referred to as ‘the PMG’). Following the Commonwealth takeover, a 1901 report to the Postmaster General in the first Australian Parliament on the colonial telephone and telegraph systems recorded that Melbourne had 3,057 subscribers connected to the Central exchange and a further 1,747 connected to twelve separate suburban exchanges. Many of these suburban exchanges were located in or adjacent to post offices. Three of the suburban exchanges accounted for 1,273 of these lines. The largest of these was Windsor with 623 subscribers, followed in size by the exchanges at Malvern and Hawthorn.

By 1910, the growth in telephone services had made additional accommodation for exchange switching equipment necessary. This could not be provided in the existing Wills Street building and arrangements were made for a new ‘Central’ manual exchange at 447-457 Lonsdale Street, which opened in August 1911. The Wills Street exchange subsequently continued to operate until closing in 1916.

The 1913 Victorian State Telephone Directories ‘List of Exchanges, Situation, and Particulars of Service’ contains 57 country telephone exchanges (all but one of which was in a post office), the Wills Street and Lonsdale Street ‘Central’ exchanges, and 13 metropolitan suburban exchanges (also all in post offices: at ‘Ascot’ (Ascot Vale), Brighton, Brunswick, Canterbury, Cheltenham, Footscray, Hawthorn, Heidelberg, Malvern, Northcote, Oakleigh, Williamstown, and Windsor).

Introduction of automatic telephone exchanges

For early twentieth century telephone networks to take on the features by which we more or less know them today, one more technological advance was required – the system had to go ‘automatic’. As telephones became more and more popular, manual exchanges were simply unable to handle the volume of calls. And as the number of subscribers increased, fewer and fewer of them would ever have been able to talk to each other if they had to wait for operators at manual exchanges to connect them.

Australia’s first automatic exchange was installed in the GPO in Sydney in 1911 for internal use only within that building. But Australia’s first automatic telephone exchange for public use began operation at Geelong in July 1912. It was located in the Post Office building on the corner of Ryrie and Gheringhap Streets, in a room at the northeast corner of its first floor. This 800-line Geelong exchange was the first automatic telephone exchange in the Southern Hemisphere. The first automatic exchange in England had been opened at Epsom just two months earlier, on 14 May 1912. The Geelong and the 500-line Epsom installations both used equipment manufactured by the Automatic Electric Company of Chicago. A number of automatic

exchanges had also commenced operation in Canada prior to 1912. Australia was thus also the third country in the then British Empire to have an automatic telephone exchange.

By 1914, 85% of Melbourne subscribers were connected to manual exchanges that were less than four years old, but the popularity of telephone use meant that the lines were becoming congested, particularly in the areas served by the Brighton exchange. Melbourne’s first automatic telephone exchange was duly opened in the suburb of Brighton in June 1914, becoming Victoria’s second.

The next three metropolitan automatic exchanges to be commissioned were at the former Sandringham post office in April 1918, in a new purpose-built exchange at Malvern in July 1919, and then in another purpose-built exchange at Collingwood in October 1922.

Two additional metropolitan automatic exchanges were established by 1925. In that same year it appears that Victoria’s first Rural Automatic Exchange (‘RAX’) was built by the PMG Department and installed at Barep (about 180km north of Melbourne). The next RAX to commence operation was then at Springvale (about 23km south-east of Melbourne) on 7 May 1927.

As the ‘Central’ exchange reached capacity in the second half of the 1920s, relief was provided by establishing a network of new automatic exchanges in the inner suburbs. The city centre continued to be served by the manual Central exchange until 1938 when the ‘City West’ Exchange at 434-436 Little Bourke Street was established as an extension of the Central building and took over some of the city area. By 1939 over 75% of Melbourne metropolitan exchange lines were automatic.

Melbourne’s metropolitan Telephone Exchange network in 1936 (Freeman, p.14)

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange

In 1915, the telephone service in the Collingwood area was provided from the exchanges at Central (Lonsdale Street), Windsor and Hawthorn. The Commonwealth saw an opportunity to relieve pressure on the switchboards of those exchanges by acquiring the site of the current Collingwood Telephone Exchange. Services in the Collingwood area could also be more economically provided by a local exchange – each subscriber would require approximately 2.4 km (1.5 miles) less double wire than would be the case if those services continued to be provided by the Central, Windsor and Hawthorn exchanges.

An October 1915 Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Report recommended approval of a proposal for the provision of a new telephone exchange building and installation of automatic telephone switching equipment at Collingwood. Following a hiatus in construction during World War I, the building portion of the Collingwood Telephone Exchange works was completed during the 1921-22 financial year, and the supply and installation of the air-conditioning, heating, ventilating and vacuum cleaning plant were completed during the 1922-23 financial year. Collingwood’s automatic Telephone Exchange commenced operation on 14 October 1922.

Subsequent expansion of the Collingwood Telephone Exchange took place in at least two stages, with construction of new fabric abutting and connected to the original. The precise design and construction dates of these stages are unknown. It is likely that the first extension was completed between the late 1920s and the late 1930s, and the second extension around the late 1950s or the early 1960s.

In February 1972, construction of a substantial two-storey extension began to the existing Exchange building complex’s east. This was completed in mid-1973. In the late 1970s a second two-storey extension was added, again to the east of the Exchange buildings. The exteriors of these two 1970s additions are mostly of unpainted off-form concrete, and they display some Brutalist style characteristics. The design drawings for the latter of these 1970s extensions indicate that the Commonwealth Department of Construction anticipated future substantial upward and eastward further additions to these parts of the Exchange, but changes in switching technology have obviated the need for further expansion of the buildings.

Privatisation of Telstra

In 1975 the Postmaster-General’s Department was disaggregated into the Australian Telecommunications Commission (trading as Telecom Australia) and the Australian Postal Commission (trading as Australia Post). Following the merger of the Australian Telecommunications Commission and the Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (OTC) in 1992, the resulting new corporation traded as ‘Telstra’ internationally and ‘Telecom Australia’ domestically until uniform branding of ‘Telstra’ was introduced throughout the entire organisation in 1995.

Telstra was subsequently partially-privatised in three different stages, informally known as ‘T1’ ($3.30), ‘T2’ ($7.40) and ‘T3’ ($3.60) in 1997, 1999 and 2006 respectively. In T1, the Australian Government sold one third of its shares in Telstra and publicly listed the company on the Australian Stock Exchange. In 1999’s T2, a further 16% of Telstra shares were sold to the public, leaving the Government with 51% ownership. In 2006, T3 (the largest of the three public releases) reduced the Government's ownership of Telstra to 17%. This ‘remainder’ was then placed into the Australian Government Future Fund, an independently-managed sovereign wealth fund into which the Government deposits funds to meet its future liabilities for payment of super to retired civil servants of the Australian Public Service. In 2009 the Future Fund sold a A$2.4 billion parcel of Telstra shares which reduced the Government’s stake to 10.9%. In August 2011 the Future Fund sold its remaining Telstra shares, effectively completing Telstra’s privatisation.

Up until 2011, buildings owned by Telstra were therefore also in Commonwealth Government ownership and thus not eligible for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register. This restriction also still applies to buildings currently owned by Australia Post.

CONSTRUCTION DETAILS

Architect name: 1922 building: Commonwealth Department of Works and Railways 1970s building: Commonwealth Department of Construction, Victoria & Tasmania Region

Architectural style name: 1922 and late 1920s to 1930s buildings: Early Commonwealth Vernacular1970s building: Brutalist.

Builder name: not known

Construction started date: 1922

Construction ended date: late 1970s

VICTORIAN HISTORICAL THEMES

03 Connecting Victorians by transport and communications3.7 Establishing and maintaining communications

06 Building towns, cities and the garden state6.2 Creating Melbourne6.3 Shaping the suburbs

INTEGRITY/INTACTNESS

Intactness

The intactness of the Collingwood Telephone Exchange is good. The buildings’ exteriors retain much of their original fabric. Internally, the walls, fixtures and finishes of the Exchange’s 1922 building and its late 1920s to late 1930s two-storey extension have been altered in many areas, although much of the original fabric of these buildings is also evident. Both stages of the 1970s two storey unpainted-concrete building are highly intact. No original 1922-era exchange equipment remains at the place. [March 2017]

Integrity

The exterior integrity of the place is good. The heritage values of the Collingwood Telephone Exchange are evident in the group of buildings, and the buildings’ individual forms encapsulate the different architectural style characteristics of their separate construction periods. The integrity of the interiors is good-to-fair, but as noted above none of the original 1922-era exchange equipment remains. [March 2017]

CONDITION

The place is in good/fair condition. Its current use as a Telstra telephone exchange has ensured that the extant building fabric is for the most part well-maintained. However, painted graffiti tags extend across the single-storey garage building’s roller-shutter doors and large areas of the buildings’ ground floor facades. The graffiti are concentrated most densely on the exterior walls facing Wellington and Glasgow Streets. Many layers of advertising posters are also affixed to the Wellington Street façade of the single-storey standalone garage building at the site’s south-west corner.

COMPARISONS

On the available evidence it appears that the Victorian Heritage Register includes only two buildings that have contained telephone exchanges.

1. Telephone exchanges in the VHR

Former Post Office, Geelong [VHR H1046]

The former Geelong Post Office, designed by J H Marsden and assisted by J H Brabin, of the Public Works Department, was built in 1889-90. The two-storey rendered brick building with an ornamental tower is prominently sited at the intersection of Ryrie and Gheringhap Streets. One of the largest regional post offices in Victoria, the building represents the important function played by the post office in a large regional centre. +In 1907 Geelong’s manual telephone exchange was established in this building. In 1912 the first automatic telephone exchange in the southern hemisphere was installed in the northeast corner of this building on the first floor, pioneering the development of this technology in Australia.

Former Post Office, Geelong [VHR H1046]

Glenisla, 6495 Henty Highway, Glenisla, (Near Horsham) [VHR H0444]

Glenisla is historically significant as an important centre of communication in Victoria. A post office was located at the homestead until 1970 and the c1940s telephone exchange survives in a small room off the rear courtyard. The Glenisla squatting run was established in 1843 by a Scotsman named Simpson who named the run after a kirkdom near Balmoral. In 1860 Charles Carter and Sons acquired the run. From the 1870s the Carter family owned or leased vast tracts of Grampian and Wimmera pastoral lands. The current homestead was built for one of Carter's sons, Samuel, and was completed in c1875. The single storey homestead is constructed of Mount Bepcha Grampians sandstone and is formed by a symmetrically arranged group of four buildings – the house, the kitchen block, the servants quarters and a store building arranged around a large rear stone paved courtyard.

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Glenisla [VHR H0444]

2. Standalone telephone exchange buildings (not in the VHR)

Former ‘Central’ manual telephone exchange: 25-29 Wills Street, Melbourne (1884) – Not in VHR

This 3-and 4-storey brick and stucco building was constructed in 1884 to house Melbourne's first purpose-built telephone exchange. Prior to the demolition of most of the exchange building somewhere between 10 and 20 years ago, it was in use as a Salvation Army hostel. The former Central exchange’s remaining facades on Wills Street and Singers Lane now bookend a 25-storey apartment building. A café named ‘Operator25’ currently occupies the former building’s Wills Street-facing ground floor area.

Wills St (left) and Singers Lane (right) facades of former ‘Central’ telephone exchange:

25-29 Wills Street, Melbourne (May 2017)

Malvern Automatic Telephone Exchange and Post Office (from 1919) – Not in VHR

Although proposals for the construction of automatic telephone exchanges at both Malvern and Collingwood were approved in 1915, neither of these were constructed for a period of time. A 1915 Parliamentary Standing Committee Report on the proposal at Malvern – which was to replace an existing exchange within the local post office building – stated that ‘the present building is unsuitable, is incapable of extension and cannot be made to accommodate the new switchboard’ and recommend the construction of a new automatic telephone exchange building.

Tenders were called for the erection of a new ‘Automatic Telephone Exchange and Post Office’ building at Malvern in 1918. The Exchange was built in Llaneast Street, at the rear of the existing post office in Glenferrie Road, and opened in 1919. The new building comprised a post office to the east and adjoining telephone exchange to the west. The Malvern Telephone Exchange is a two-storey red brick building with a set of four arch-headed ground floor window recesses on its Llaneast Street elevation and featuring simple horizontal render bands on all its facades. It remains an operational telephone exchange.

Malvern Automatic Telephone Exchange and Post Office (Google streetview)

Elsternwick automatic telephone exchange (1929) – Not in VHR

An automatic telephone exchange at Elsternwick was proposed in 1924 but not opened until 1929. The single-storey red brick building has a hipped roof behind parapets. Its external walls are articulated into bays by plain pilasters, and feature rendered stringcourses with projecting rendered and painted cornices and sunhoods above the windows to the Selwyn and Sinclair Street elevations. The external street-facing walls also feature very carefully set out panels of face brick detailing. The Elsternwick Telephone Exchange is operational and is an example of an exchange that possesses high levels of intactness and integrity.

Elsternwick Automatic Telephone Exchange (May 2017)

‘City West’ automatic telephone exchange: 434 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne (1938) – Not in VHR

This Commonwealth Works Department-designed telephone exchange contained eight storeys (including one full basement storey) of floor space. Its exteriors featured finely detailed red brick and terra cotta facings

in keeping with the Stripped Classical design of the 1926 and 1935-constructed High Court to its immediate west. It remains an operational telephone exchange, and appears to be in good condition.

When opened the City West Exchange contained five storeys for switching equipment, extensive staff facilities on the top-most floor, a vacuum cleaning plant, turbo-blowers for pneumatic tubes in the trunk switchroom, and an electric winch on the roof for lifting apparatus to access doors on each storey.

City West Telephone Exchange, 434 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne (May 2017)

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange does not display characteristics that warrant its inclusion on the VHR ahead of these other examples of early and/or highly intact telephone exchange buildings.

3. Telephone Exchange sites which feature a wide range of construction periods (not in the VHR)

Windsor Post Office and Telephone Exchange building complex (1907-08 to 1970s) – Not in VHR

Windsor’s first telephone exchange, operational for a number of years prior to the beginning of the twentieth century, was in a small post office building adjoining its 1886 railway station. The existing exchange complex at Windsor comprises three adjoining buildings which each extend between Peel and Albert Streets. The earliest – the 1907-08 Windsor Post Office and Telephone Exchange, a finely detailed and innovative example of Edwardian Free Style design with Arts and Crafts leanings – was built to the design of H J MacKennal of the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs. The reinforced concrete frame which carries much of its structure was designed by John Monash and is an early example of the use of this technique in Australian building. Delays in installing and commissioning the telephone exchange equipment meant that it did not commence operation from this building until September 1910.

A two-storey building was added to the east of this in 1938 to accommodate the exchange’s expansion and conversion to automatic switching. In the mid-1970s a large seven-storey plus basement Modern cream-coloured face brick exchange building was constructed to the east of the 1938 exchange.

Windsor Telephone Exchange complex: Albert St (left) and Peel St (right) (March 2017)

Hawthorn Post Office and telephone exchange building complex (1908-09) – Not in VHR

The former Hawthorn Post Office was constructed in 1908-9 as a post office intended to incorporate a telephone exchange. It is a two-storey red brick building with freestone and over-painted rendered brick dressings. The Hawthorn manual telephone exchange was relocated to this building from the local Town Hall in 1911. Designed by Victorian Public Works Department architect, Samuel Brittingham, for the Commonwealth, the former Hawthorn Post Office building is a flamboyant example of Federation design. It combines Queen Anne and English Baroque Revival detailing, and includes fine leadlight art nouveau tracery to the postal hall windows. To the Burwood Road elevation there is a frieze of freestone which carries lettering formed in stone in relief. The lettering above the arched window reads ‘POST & TELEGRAPH OFFICE’ and that above the corner entry porch reads ‘TELEPHONE BUREAU’.

The Post Office function of the original 1908-09 building ceased in 1998, and the building was converted to house the Boroondara Community Health Centre. A large, three-level extension was added to the rear in 2013 for additional offices, physiotherapy rooms, and carparking.

In 1938 Hawthorn’s telephone exchange moved again, to a new building. This had been constructed to house automatic switching equipment and is located on the opposite side of Burwood Road (at No.375) and slightly further to the west of the former Hawthorn Post Office.

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Hawthorn Telephone Exchange building complex: Left, 1908-09 Post Office (Panoramio); and Right, 1938 telephone exchange which also contains Telstra Museum (Google streetview)

The two-storey 1938 telephone exchange building was in 1959 extended to the north (towards Glenferrie railway station). In the early 1970s an adjoining new Modern automatic telephone exchange building with six storeys and a basement was built to the immediate north of the two-storey 1938 and 1959 buildings.

The Telstra Museum at the Hawthorn Post Office and telephone exchange building complex:

The 1938 automatic exchange building at 375 Burwood Road still contains telephone exchange functions and also houses Melbourne’s ‘Telstra Museum’. This Museum contains a large collection of historical telecommunications equipment and is managed by a group of dedicated volunteers. Highlights of the collection include displays of Morse equipment and telegraphy, telephones early to modern, public telephones, mobile telephones, interactive working electromechanical and digital telephone exchange equipment, original working Speaking Clocks, and operational manual switchboards.

Hawthorn Telephone Exchange building complex, with construction dates (Google streetview)

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange does not display characteristics that warrant its inclusion on the VHR ahead of these other examples of groups of telephone exchange buildings.

4. Early Commonwealth Vernacular buildings

During the first three decades of the twentieth century, there developed a number of Commonwealth Government architectural styles for the many thousands of Australian government buildings that were commissioned and constructed. These styles were dependent on a number of variables that included the function, location and period in which the building was being constructed but the most critical variable was often financial cost and the need for purposeful, economical design outcomes. In achieving these outcomes, Commonwealth design in the 1910s and 1920s was often based on strong utilitarian aims.

One of the outward aesthetic expressions of utilitarian design espoused by Commonwealth Government Architect John Smith Murdoch and his Department in this period is described as the ‘Early Commonwealth Vernacular’. The 1922 Collingwood Telephone Exchange building is one of many Government buildings of its time that demonstrates characteristic Commonwealth Vernacular style and design elements.

Many of the fine remaining examples of these buildings are brick industrial structures (with gabled, hipped or saw-toothed roofs) and domestic-like buildings (often with Arts & Crafts overtones). Some of these design features are also derivations of Murdoch’s Pre-Commonwealth Federation Free Style work wherein there was an emphasis on utilising Australian vernacular forms, responding to the local climate and practicability. Other design features of the Commonwealth Vernacular in the mid-1910s and 1920s may have evolved from influences that Murdoch had absorbed during his visit to the U.S.A. in 1912-13.

Former Federal Woollen Mills, North Geelong [VHR H1938]

The Former Federal Woollen Mills was completed in 1915 for the Commonwealth Department of Defence, and occupies a site of approximately 8.9 hectares (22 acres). The Mill took raw wool which was scoured, carded, dyed, spun and woven into the cloth for army uniforms. The Mill was the final component of a system of factories planned in 1910 by the newly formed Commonwealth government that were designed to make Australia self-sufficient in essential military equipment.

The former Federal Woollen Mill complex contains several Commonwealth Vernacular and Modern Renaissance industrial buildings that are broadly arranged in two groups, with a central lane between. These buildings were designed by Commonwealth chief architect John Smith Murdoch.

Most of the gable ends of the buildings within the complex have distinctive, expansive arched windows that are bound and interrupted by large brick buttresses/pilasters with angled caps. These gables also feature the

1970s

1938

1959

1908 - 09

standard Commonwealth Vernacular central parapeted gables with horizontal (‘pylon-like’) ends. Soldier course banding, cement rendered sills and bands, and courses of unpainted brick voussoirs are further Early Commonwealth Vernacular characteristics demonstrated by the Mill complex buildings.

Former Federal Woollen Mill complex, North Geelong [VHR H1938]

Marine Engineering School Administration Building at HMAS Cerberus (1926)(This place cannot be assessed or recommended for the VHR because it is in Commonwealth ownership)

The Marine Engineering School Administration Building at HMAS Cerberus was constructed in 1926. This single storey building has two longitudinal gable pavilions linked by a transverse gable, forming a U-shaped plan. Its walls are of striking red brick construction. The parapeted gable ends feature horizontal (pylon-like) ends, are articulated with cement-rendered lintels and bands, and feature brick pilasters capped with sloping stone plinths.

The HMAS Cerberus complex is the largest, most significant and longest continuously functioning training facility held by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and it is associated with the development of Australia's naval forces since 1913. The complex contains many good and important examples of Early Commonwealth Vernacular and Georgian Revival design styles. Commonwealth architect John Smith Murdoch, well known for his pre-eminent role in Canberra's architectural development, played a central planning and design role at HMAS Cerberus from 1913 through the 1920s, and he designed a number of its buildings.

Like many of the Royal Australian Navy buildings at the HMAS Cerberus base, the Marine Engineering School Administration Building is in good condition and of high integrity.

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HMAS Cerberus Marine Engineering School Administration Building(tripmondo.com, Stony Point Destination Guide)

When compared with these examples, the Collingwood Telephone Exchange does not display characteristics that warrant its inclusion in the VHR as a significant example of Early Commonwealth Vernacular-style architecture.

5. Brutalist buildings in the VHR

Plumbers and Gasfitters Union Building, Carlton (VHR H2307)

The Plumbers and Gasfitters Union Building is a highly distinctive three-storey building built in 1969-71. It is one of the earliest, finest and most influential examples of the Brutalist style of architecture in Victoria. It is recognised as a major work of the influential Melbourne architect Graeme Gunn.

The Plumbers and Gasfitters Union Building contains car parking and mechanical services at ground level, office space for the Plumbers and Gasfitters Union on the first floor and lettable space on the floor above. The structure, designed to enable the addition of two extra floors, is of reinforced concrete with an off-form finish on all external and major internal surfaces. Windows are aluminium framed with dark smoked glazing and are deeply recessed on the west facade to provide some sun control. The design emphasises both structure and material with an unorthodox and purposeful arrangements of masses and voids. The concrete’s vertical patterned imprint of the timber-boarded formwork lining, and its regular sets of filled holes indicating the rod supports for the formwork, show an honest use of construction materials and exposure of natural finishes. The clear indication of circulation patterns, as evident in the dominant front staircase, is also an important Brutalist characteristic.

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Plumbers and Gasfitters Union Building [VHR H2307](flickr, Melbourne Heritage Action)

Harold Holt Swim Centre, Glen Iris (VHR H0069)

The Harold Holt Swim Centre is a complex of indoor and outdoor public swimming pools and facilities. It was built in 1969 and designed by local architects Kevin Borland and Daryl Jackson.

The Harold Hold Swim Centre is one of the most notable, expressive, early and intact examples of the Brutalist movement that emerged in Victoria in the late-1960s. It illustrates the aesthetic as well as ethical imperatives of the Brutalist style. The bold articulation of forms in textured off-form concrete, concrete blocks and glass provides a sculptural aesthetic which is fundamental to Brutalist architecture. The heavy

forms are balanced with focused transparency through the site, achieved by extensive use of natural lighting and the careful planning of the interior spaces. Brutalism's ethical concern with social responsiveness and the centrality of the user in the design of the building is clearly evident in the Swim Centre design’s emphasis on circulation elements (the use of expressed ramps and stairs), the articulation of the functional systems (ramps, skylights, service ducts, mezzanine observation deck) and in the overall clarity and integration of the building, pools and gardens.

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Harold Holt Swim Centre [VHR H0069]

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiUh6DPxtLTAhXCo5QKHV4-AykQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fgervo1865%2F6194085577&psig=AFQjCNHTon0jnrcpQOk54nilH4PLLAvOGA&ust=1493860608131349



(flickr, L J Gervasoni)

Summary of comparisons

Many hundreds of telephone exchange buildings were constructed from the 1910s onwards in Victoria. They have been built in a wide range of twentieth century architectural styles. The 1922 building at the Collingwood Telephone Exchange is among the first of the purpose-built automatic telephone exchanges to be constructed in Victoria after World War I. However, when considered together with the large number of buildings to which its function and style characteristics – and its importance to the course of Victoria’s history – can be compared, the Collingwood Telephone Exchange is not a notable example of its class. There are some Brutalist-style elements at this place. But when compared with examples of Brutalism in the VHR, the Collingwood Telephone Exchange does not display characteristics of state level significance which would make it a notable example of Brutalist-style architecture.

KEY REFERENCES USED TO PREPARE ASSESSMENT

Commonwealth Government Department of Works & Railways, February 1923, Schedule of Works, via National Archive of Australia: A106/1, G24/2898.

Department of Construction, Victoria & Tasmania Region: Project No. V 76/45, ‘Collingwood 3066 Telephone Exchange Alterations & Additions’ – set of 21 construction drawings, dated 15 April 1977.

Freeman, A.H., History of Telephone Switching Technology in Australia: 1880 to 1980, Australian Telecommunications Monograph No.5.

Moyal, Ann, 1984, Clear across Australia: A history of telecommunications, Thomas Nelson: Melbourne.

Moynihan, J.F., Early Automatic Telephony in Australia, Second National Conference of Engineering Heritage, Melbourne, 20-22 May 1985.

National Archive of Australia: Series No. B6295 photographs of Collingwood Telephone Exchange,taken Feb 1972 to July 1973

The Palace of Winged Words: the development of telephone exchanges in Australia, December 1980, Telecom Australia (Melbourne), Information and Publicity Office.

Parliament of Australia: House of Representatives Committees, List of Committee Reports by Subject ‘Telephone Exchange’, via http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_representatives_Committees?url=report_register/bykeylist.asp?id=1254

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 25 October 1915, Report together with Minutes of Evidence relating to the questions of: Provision of Automatic Telephone Exchange, Sydney; Provision of Automatic Telephone Exchange, Malvern; Provision of Automatic Telephone Exchange, Collingwood.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 10 May 1968, Report relating to the proposal to extend the Hawthorn Telephone Exchange Melbourne, Victoria.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 30 May 1973, Report relating to the proposed construction of Extensions to Windsor Telephone Exchange Melbourne, Victoria.

The Post Office at Cheltenham, on ‘City of Kingston historical website’, via http://localhistory.kingston.vic.gov.au/htm/article/56.htm

Ryan, F.J., City West Telephone Exchange, Melbourne, Postal Electrical Society of Victoria, Paper No.23, 10 February 1936.

‘The Switching Place: The Story of Telephone Exchanges – Telecom Information Kit No.3’,

Section 1: From Toy to Exchange-based Service, July 1993, Telecom Australia Education Development Unit.

‘The Switching Place: The Story of Telephone Exchanges – Telecom Information Kit No.3’, Section 5: The Telephone Exchange: Wiring and Other Elements, July 1993, Telecom Australia Education Development Unit.

Telecom Museum, on ‘only Melbourne’ website, via http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/telecom-museum#.WQtpmsYlGUk

Telephone Exchanges 100 Years 1883-1983: Telecommunications Museum Report 1983, Telecom Australia (Adelaide, South Australia).

The Telstra Museum: A Telecommunications Treasure Trove, on ‘Shack West’ website, via http://shackwest.com.au/2013/01/24/the-telstra-museum/

Telstra Museum Melbourne, on ‘Victoria’s Accredited Museums’ website, via https://www.victorianmuseums.com.au/telstra-museum-melbourne#1

Telstra Museum virtual tour, on ‘Telstra Exchange’ website, via https://exchange.telstra.com.au/telstra-museum-virtual-tour/

Victorian State Telephone Directories 1913, ‘List of Exchanges, Situation, and Particulars of Service,15th March, 1913’.

Victorian State Telephone Directories 1923, ‘Postmaster General’s Department (Victoria)’.

Victorian Telecommunications Museum Visit, on ‘Museums Victoria’ website, via https://museumvictoria.com.au/about/mv-blog/dec-2010/victorian-telecommunications-museum-visit/

‘Visit’, in Victorian Institute of Engineers – 1912, May 11th,[photos and account of a visit by Institute members to the new ‘Central’ exchange in Lonsdale Street] via https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/24538/307077_UDS2013255-12-0006.pdf?sequence=1

Ward, A., 2017, City of Port Phillip Heritage Review, Citation No.2312 [for Telephone Exchange at 255 Bank Street, South Melbourne].

Windsor, on ‘STAMPBOARDS.com’ Postage Stamp Chat Board & Stamp Bulletin Board Forum, via http://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=16494&start=250

Newspaper reports

The Age, 6 Nov 1915, p.12, [plans for Malvern and Collingwood automatic telephone exchanges]

The Age, 29 July 1919: p.5, [opening of Malvern automatic telephone exchange]

The Age, Fri 13 October 1922, p.10, ‘THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM. COLLINGWOOD AUTOMATIC EXCHANGE. TO BE OPENED TO-MORROW’.

The Argus, Wed 26 April 1922, p.15, ‘TELEPHONE CONGESTION. RELIEVING CENTRAL EXCHANGE. New Building at Collingwood.’

The Argus, Thu 17 August 1922, p.6, ‘NEW TELEPHONE EXCHANGE. RELIEVING CONGESTION IN CITY. Waiting list Reduced.’

The Argus, Mon 2 October 1922, p.6, ‘AUTOMATIC TELEPHONES. New Exchange at Collingwood.’

The Argus, Sat 14 October 1922, p.26, ‘COLLINGWOOD TELEPHONES.’

The Argus, Wed 25 October 1922, p.19, ‘WAITING FOR TELEPHONES: LONG DELAYED RELIEF. Position at Central Exchange.’

The Argus, 27 May 1929: p.12, [opening of Elsternwick automatic telephone exchange]

ADDITIONAL IMAGES

View from north-west, at corner of Wellington and Glasgow Streets (March 2017)

View from south-west, at corner of Wellington and Northumberland Streets (March 2017)

Southern (Northumberland Street) side of Exchange building complex (March 2017)

Southern (Northumberland Street) side of 1970s extensions (March 2017)

View from south-east, looking from Northumberland Street (March 2017)

View from north-east, looking from Glasgow Street (March 2017)

Northern (Glasgow Street) facades of Exchange building complex (March 2017)

Interior of ground-floor of 1922 Exchange building, showing present day equipment.Left: the ground-floor’s bank of lead-acid batteries, within a ‘No Load Zone’ (March 2017)

Within single-storey building addition on southern side of complex.Right: windows in the formerly external wall of the first extension to the 1922 building (March 2017)

Present-day lunch room, in 1922 building’s south-west upper-storey corner (March 2017)

Equipment within the upper storey of the late-1970s extension. Left: beneath the roof is a deeply ribbed concrete slab, built to support a planned but unrealised further expansion of the Exchange (March 2017)

July 1973: southern (Northumberland Street) side of Exchange building complex with recently-completed first stage of the two Brutalist-style additions

July 1973: eastern side of recently-completed first stage of the two Brutalist-style additions

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