All-figure dialling

All-figure dialling was a telephone numbering plan introduced in the United Kingdom starting in 1966 that replaced the traditional system of using initial letters of telephone exchange names as the first part of a telephone number. The change primarily affected subscriber numbers in the cities of Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Manchester.

The transition to all-figure dialling occurred between 1966 and 1970 and was initiated by the General Post Office. It was one of the first in a series of changes in the organisation of British telephone numbers. In most areas the change initially only affected the presentation of area codes, but in six multiple exchange director areas such as the London telephone area, the change required the introduction of new local exchange codes. The period of parallel operation of the old and new systems ended in 1970 with the ANN: All-figure Numbers Now advertising campaign. The changes were required for the continued good operation of the telephone service, but were considered controversial at the time. They occurred because of the increase in subscriber-dialled international calls from countries which used a different mapping of letters to numbers on the rotary dial and because the number of useful exchange mnemonics that were possible under the existing system was being exhausted. The implementation of all-figure dialling and new local exchange codes in director areas allowed changes to be made to routing of calls into and out of these areas.

The General Post Office issued subscriber trunk dialling (STD) codes for most areas during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The codes allowed subscribers to call other exchanges directly and without the assistance of an operator. To help the public remember the new codes they were represented by a recognisable combination of two letters and a number. The letters and numbers corresponded as follows:

The three character codes were dialled after an initial '0' which gave trunk access. For example the code for Bath was BA5, which was dialled as 0225. The rotary dial included the corresponding letters next to the appropriate digits.

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