This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1980. This report includes the text from the original Building Classification Committee report considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. Manual telephones were operating in New Zealand by 1881. In 1913 the New Zealand Post Office called tenders for rotary automatic equipment, the successful tenderer being the American Western Electric Company. The first automatic exchange equipment was installed at Auckland and Wellington in that year, but this merely supplemented the manual equipment. During World War I, suppliers turned their productive efforts to war purposes and it was not until May 1919 that the first fully automatic 'exchange in New Zealand was opened at Masterton. Blenheim, Remuera, Mt Eden, Hamilton and Ponsonby exchanges followed suit soon after. Of these only the Hamilton Exchange (1916) remains intact. It has, however, been extensively altered. The Khandallah Automatic Telephone Exchange was designed in 1918 and completed in 1921. The exchange was connected on 30 June 1922. It had forty lines, and the automatic rotary switchboard was powered by a 48 hour electric battery. The number of subscribers grew rapidly and the switchboard space was extended in 1925. By 1945 there were 400 one party lines and in 1951 a new exchange was designed to cope with increased usage. The Khandallah Automatic Telephone Exchange's rotary machinery was rendered redundant by the New Zealand Post Office's introduction of the electronic Stored Programme Control (SPC) system there in October, 1984.
Location
List Entry Information
Overview
Detailed List Entry
Status
Listed
List Entry Status
Historic Place Category 1
Access
Private/No Public Access
List Number
4425
Date Entered
4th April 1990
Date of Effect
4th April 1990
City/District Council
Wellington City
Region
Wellington Region
Extent of List Entry
Extent includes the land described as Sec 1 SO 26390 (RT WN36B/456), Wellington Land District, and the building known as Khandallah Automatic Telephone Exchange (Former) thereon.
Legal description
Sec 1 SO 26390 (RT WN36B/456), Wellington Land District