Casgliadau Arlein

The Western Counties and South Wales Telephone Company, Limited, 1889, black. * Black print on white paper. Unused with handwritten note in black ink. Ornate border at left and right. Certificate number '300'. Dated 6 May 1889.

This company was formed in 1884, a few months after liberation of telephone regulations made regional networks feasible for the first time in the UK. It was one of the seven regional telephone companies that covered the UK in the 1880s and early 1890s prior to the National Telephone Co. Ltd. achieving UK-wide dominance. By 1888 the south Wales portion of its network extended from Cardiff and Newport, westwards to Swansea and Llanelli, with some connections to valleys towns – connecting all the major industrial and urban centres of the south Wales coastal belt.