WW1 London Telephone Service Air Raids lapel badge.

• The National Telephone Company (NTC) was a British telephone company that consolidated smaller local companies from 1881 to 1911, and was nationalised under the Telephone Transfer Act 1911, with the General Post Office taking over in 1912. By WWI, London’s telephone exchanges were run by the GPO, often still referred to by staff and the public as the “London Telephone Service.”

• During air raids, exchange operators (mostly women) were expected to stay at their switchboards to keep emergency and official lines open despite bombing overhead. Records from the National Archives describe telephone operators at the London Trunk Exchange taking on new wartime responsibilities , and this kind of badge would have been a service/award badge recognising staff who stayed on duty through raids.