John Stanley Coombe Beard FRIBA (1890 – 1970) was born in 1890, son of Percy Edward Beard, founder of the London Spiritual Mission alongside Percy’s brothers Ernest and Glen. He was educated at King Alfred’s School, Wantage, Berkshire before training in architecture and going into practice with Alfred Douglas Clare. Their practice specialised in designing art deco cinemas.
He lived in Hampstead, where one night he heard noise coming from the room below his bedroom. His wife became the first person to dial the emergency services on 999 in 1937, resulting in the burglar Thomas Duffy being arrested.
My wife made use of the new signal that we were instructed to use yesterday on the telephone, and as a result of using that signal almost instantaneous connection was made with the police station, and in less than five minutes this man was arrested… It struck me, as a householder and a fairly large taxpayer, that we are getting something for our money, and I was very impressed by it.
John Beard in The Times
This emergency number was originally only open to the residence of Central London, but soon Glasgow got the system for the number and the service was only nationalised in the 1950s, you were still put through to an operator. Only in the 1970s when switchboards were replaced with an automatic system, where the calls able to to be put through to a call centre. The original number of 999 was chosen because it was the end of the turning dial of a phone, and in smoke, or London smog, anyone could use the phone by touch.
