The Liverpool Director Area opened in 1941, with the first exchange being named Advance Exchange. All Figure Numbering (AFN) was introduced in Liverpool in 1966.

Liverpool’s dialling code became 051, with the number 5 representing the first letter of the city (L) on a dial telephone.

In 1966 all-figure number (AFN) dialling codes were introduced in Liverpool, as illustrated by the map on the left.

The photo on the right is of  Liverpool Central Exchange located in Lancaster House, Old Hall Street, Liverpool.

Because of expansion and the reorganisation of exchanges into sectors many of the exchange numbers were changed, however some stayed the same. For example to dial someone on the Royal exchange with the number 0200 you would have dialled ROY 0200, nowadays it would be 709 0200.

A leaflet (shown here) produced in the mid 60’s explains the introduction of All-Figure Telephone Numbers for London (01-), Birmingham (021-), Edinburgh (031-), Glasgow (041-), Liverpool (051-) & Manchester (061-). These were known as the Director Areas. The changeover began in March 1966 and was completed in 1969. Further information on Director Area Codes can be found at: Letters for digits in UK telephone numbers

There are few differences between the 1965 and the 1968 dialling codes, apart from the fact that the 1968 codes are shown as numbers, rather than letters (see top of the page). By 1987 many exchanges had lost their local codes in lieu of STD codes. These days all the codes are in STD (01XXX format), although they are still charged at the local call rate, if calling from Liverpool. My thanks to Chris Coulter, Derek Moore and other contributors for supplying much of the information on this page.