Hugh Cossart Baker Jr. (9 December 1846, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada – 18 March 1931) was a businessman and telephone pioneer. On June 20, 1877, Baker started up the first commercial telephone service in Canada in the city of Hamilton, Ontario. Then in 1878, he made the first telephone exchange in the British Empire. This was also the second telephone exchange in all of North America. The following season on 15 May 1879 he made Hamilton the site of the first commercial long-distance telephone line in the British Empire. In 1880, (April 29) Hugh Cossart Baker Jr. received a charter to build a national telephone company in Hamilton, Ontario. It was called the Hamilton Telephone Company and this was the charter that enabled the creation of the Bell Telephone Company in Canada. Hugh Cossart B