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The old home phone numbers of former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, composer Edward Elgar and poet John Betjeman are among millions being made available online for the first time.
Genealogy website ancestry.co.uk has spent three years transferring nearly 2000 old British phone books to the internet to help people research their family tree.
From the first slimline directory of 1880 that contained just 248 names, to the heavyweight volumes of the 1980s, the collection traces the inexorable spread of the phone network.
Betjeman could be reached at his Berkshire home on "Wantage 150", while Elgar is listed at his estate in Warwickshire.
Directories for London were published online last year. The project now includes all the 280 million historic names, addresses and numbers from throughout Britain.
- Reuters
