OUR photo from the past today shows telephonists at the former Post Office site in Lendal, York, in the early 1900s.

It's a world away from today's technology where we can make telephone calls over digital networks on wireless mobile devices and even make video calls.

York's first telephone exchange was housed over a chemist's shop in Parliament Street and was opened in 1886 by the National Telephone Company - just ten years after Alexander Graham Bell had patented his telephone which allowed people to hold conversations with each other over long distances.

Telephone networks expanded rapidly but people needed a third party to connect them which gave rise to the telephone exchange where operators, mostly women, would put callers through to their desired destination.

The first subscriber in York was Dr Tempest Anderson and in 1886 there were just 11 subscribers in the city.

In 1892, the Post Office opened a rival exchange in Lendal and by this time competition was keen as there were 113 subscribers in the city.

There were two main exchanges in York – in Parliament Street and Lendal – and these continued to operate separately until 1920s.

National telephone exchanges were taken over by the Post Office in 1912.

Thanks to the City of York Council's Explore Archive for the use of the photo.

There was a telephone exchange in York from 1886 until 2003 when BT streamlined its customer service operation and the York service, based in Stonebow, moved to Leeds and Doncaster.