The first telephones arrive in Britain (1877) : 'greatest by far of all the marvels'

Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) exhibited Bell's primitive telephone before the British Association for the Advancement of Science assembly at Glasgow in September 1876, describing it as "the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph".

The first pair of practical telephones seen in Great Britain arrived in July 1877, brought here by William Preece, Chief Electrician of the Post Office. A few months later, Bell's 'perfected' type of telephone was exhibited at another meeting of the British Association in Plymouth.