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 History of police boxes

19th century American police call box.

The first police telephone was installed in Albany, New York in 1877, one year after Alexander Graham Bell invented the device.^[5] Call boxes for use by both police and members of the public were first installed in Washington, D.C. in 1883; Chicago and Detroit installed police call boxes in 1884, and in 1885 Boston followed suit.^[5] These were direct line telephones placed on a post which could often be accessed by a key or breaking a glass. In Chicago, the telephones were restricted to police use, but the boxes also contained a dial mechanism which members of the public could use to signal different types of alarms: there were eleven signals, including "Police Wagon Required", "Thieves", "Forgers", "Murder", "Accident", "Fire" and "Drunkard".^[6]

An 1894 advertisement for the "Glasgow Style Police Signal Box System", sold by the National Telephone Company.

The first public police telephones in Britain were introduced in Glasgow in 1891.^[7] These tall, hexagonal cast-iron boxes were painted red and had large gas lanterns fixed to the roof, and a mechanism which enabled the central police station to light the lantern as a signal to policemen in the vicinity to call the station for instructions.^[7]

Rectangular, wooden police boxes were introduced in Sunderland in 1923, and Newcastle in 1925.^[8] The Metropolitan Police introduced police boxes throughout London between 1928 and 1937;^[9]; the design that later became most well-known was created for the Met by Gilbert Mackenzie Trench in 1929.^[10] The earliest boxes were made of wood, and later ones of concrete; officers complained that the concrete boxes were extremely cold. The interiors of these boxes normally contained, for the use of officers: a stool, a table, brushes and dusters, a fire extinguisher and a small electric heater.^[9] Like the 19th century Glaswegian boxes, the London police boxes contained a light at the top, which would flash as a signal to police officers on the beat that they should contact the station, but the light was now electric.^[9]

This Edinburgh police box now serves as a coffee shop.