Ken C Johnson trained as an electronic circuit designer. From around 1951 until the early 1980s he worked for Ferranti and International Computers Limited. He later worked at Manchester University as a lecturer and demonstrator.
Ferranti Ltd began working on computers in 1947, and by 1949 had established a Computer Group within the company. The Group worked with academic researchers, notably at the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge, and delivered the world's first commercially available computer in 1951: the Ferranti Mark 1. The collaboration with Manchester went on to produce the Ferranti Mercury and Atlas, whilst work with Cambridge led to the Atlas 2 or Titan.
In 1953-1955 Ferranti set up a sales and development centre in central London, at Portland Place, in order to encourage a market for their products. A Pegasus computer was built on site. Other machines developed in the 1950s included the Pegasus II and Perseus models, as well as the Orion models. These machines were found to be useful in the aerospace industry and for nuclear research.
From 1958-1962 Ferranti attempted to dramatically improve performance with a completely new design of computer: the Atlas. Background research was carried out at the University of Manchester and was known as the MUSE project.
In 1963 the computer department was sold to International Computers and Tabulators. However, Ferranti continued to produce computers for the industrial sector through the Ferranti-Packard division, and work continued at the company's Bracknell, Wythenshawe and Cheadle Heath sites in industrial computing, automation and military computing. In the 1960s and 1970s the company developed its Argus models.
Ferranti Computer Systems Ltd was formed in 1977 to bring together Ferranti’s computing divisions at Bracknell (digital systems), Wythenshawe (automation), and Cheadle Heath (military systems). The new company had a workforce of 4,400 and a £30 million pound annual turnover. The company was successful throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s.
Ferranti Computer Systems developed and manufactured control, monitoring and communication systems for industrial processes such as oil and gas extraction, public utilities, data communications networks and road transport. They were also involved in information systems including for air transport, providing data processing terminals, office systems, industrial and commercial local area networks. The company also supplied equipment to end users.
As well as being active in the UK, by 1988 the company had subsidiaries in Australia, West Germany, Belgium and America.
In 1994 Ferranti entered receivership. The computing division was sold to a division of Thomson-CSF, known as SYSECA. The company adopted the name Ferranti-SYSECA, which fell out of use around 1996. Ferranti Computer Systems merged with Thales UK in 2000, whereupon all operations were moved to Cheadle Heath on the outskirts of Manchester.
International Computers Ltd (ICL) was a British company formed in 1968 as a part of the Industrial Expansion Act of the Wilson Labour Government. ICL was an initiative of Tony Benn, the Minister of Technology, to create a British computer industry that could compete with major world manufacturers like IBM. English Electric Leo Marconi (EELM) was merged with the computer interests of Elliott Automation which was then taken over by International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) to form International Computers Limited (ICL). Plessey Co and English Electric each owned 18% of the equity of ICL, with 53.5% in the hands of former shareholders of ICT and the remaining 10.5% held by the government. ICL represented the last step in a series of mergers that had taken place in the industry since the late 1950s.
ICL tended to rely on large contracts from the UK public sector. Significant customers included Post Office Ltd., the Inland Revenue, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Ministry of Defence.
The company had various buildings at Bracknell (its main one being at Lovelace Road in the town); it also had numerous locations throughout the UK and worldwide. Manufacturing took place in Letchworth (Hertfordshire), Manchester and the Midlands (including Kidsgrove). It is thought that there were over 100 ICL locations in the UK alone with many more overseas.
Fujitsu's involvement with ICL steadily increased; in 1990 Fujitsu acquired 80% of ICL plc from STC. Following the acquisition of Nokia Data in 1991, personal computers and servers were marketed under the ICL brand. Eventually in 2002, Fujitsu acquired full ownership of ICL and subsequently fully integrated it, dropping the ICL brand.
Date
? 1950- ? 2000
Scope and ContentArchive consisting of original research notebooks and correspondence of Ken Johnson, an electronic circuit designer, covering the period when he worked at Ferranti and International Computers Ltd. There is also one file relating to Johnson's lecturing at the University of Manchester.
The archive also includes samples of electronic circuitry designed for Ferranti computers.
Extent5 boxes of files, notebooks, disks and circuits
Physical descriptionThe archive is in a generally good condition, with some items in a fair condition. Some notebooks show damage to the spines or spiral binding, and there is some surface dirt.
LanguageEnglish
Archival historyThis material was created by Ken Johnson in the period when he worked at Ferranti, International Computers Ltd and the University of Manchester. He donated it to the museum in 2005.
Mullard Limited was initially founded as the Mullard Radio Valve Company by Captain Stanley Robert Mullard. The new company was financed by the Radio Communication Co in order to compete with Marconi, especially in the field of maritime radio, and its valves were soon adopted for use by the Admiralty. The business was boosted by the beginning of broadcasting in the UK during the early 1920s and would go onto form Mullard Wireless Service Co to market the valves it produced. Despite this, by 1924 the company was in need of additional capital as well as additional technical resources, in part to meet the demands of the newly formed BBC. As a result, Mullard sold half the company to Philips. As part of this, Philips established a UK based subsidiary, Philips Electrical, which held its shares in Mullard, and in 1925 Mullard was registered as a private company. In 1927 Philips acquired the rest of the company, with Captain Mullard stepping down as Managing Director in 1929.
Following the departure of its founder, the company continued to expand, beginning production of cathode ray tubes in 1936, opening new production facilities and in 1938 acquiring E.K. Cole Ltd until the Second World War. During the war, Mullard was considered a foreign owned company and, although it produced a large number of conventional valve designs, it was not part of any government funded research projects, such as those into microwave frequencies. Partly as a result of this, and partly due to a lack of a coherent UK research facility which was born from a reliance on Philips’ Eindhoven facility, the company formed the Mullard Research Laboratories in 1946. This new facility replaced the existing structure of fragmented laboratories in each of the production facilities and would allow the company to participate in research projects that received funding from the British Government. At the same time, Philips had a reorganisation of its subsidiaries and Mullard became a wholly owned subsidiary of Philips Electrical Industries Limited which in turn was a subsidiary of Philips.
By 1951 the company’s products had expanded beyond the valves it originally produced and, in order to reflect this, its name was changed to Mullard Limited. At around the same time the company also began to produce its first transistors, which would eventually be produced at their own facility in Southampton, and took over the running of British Tungsram which was another Philips owned company. Along with this expansion, in 1957 Mullard also helped to set up the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. Throughout this period the production of transistors had continued to grow, with new models being introduced in 1953. By 1960 Mullard produced 75% of all British semiconductors, by volume, as well as a number of other electronics components. In 1962 the company formed a joint venture with GEC, Associated Semiconductor Manufacturers, in order to combine development and production, mostly of transistors, but this only lasted until 1969 when GEC pulled out. Expansion continued through the rest of the 1960s, with the opening of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory 1966 which resulted in increased production capacity, with one factory producing one million colour television tubes by 1968.
Despite the success enjoyed during the 1960s, by the 1970s Mullard began to suffer some difficulties, with factories being closed in 1972, 1975 and 1979, and production being cut back in other areas. In 1977 the Mullard Research Laboratory was renamed the Philips Research Laboratory. Despite further factory closures in the 1980s, Mullard also began to produce teletext decoders and video discs for the Philips laser disk system.
Philips continued to use the Mullard name until 1988 when the subsidiary’s name was changed to Philips Components Limited. The semiconductor facilities were transferred to Philips Semiconductors, later NXP Semiconductors, with the Southampton site closing.
Manchester University was the popular name used for the Victoria University of Manchester, constituted in 1904.
Manchester University emerged from the federal Victoria University, which included colleges in Liverpool and Leeds alongside Owens College in Manchester. In 1900 the colleges of the Victoria University separated and in 1904 Owens College was reconstituted as the Victoria University of Manchester, though it was often known simply known as Manchester University, or Owens.
In 2004 Manchester University, under its formal name the Victoria University of Manchester, combined with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) to become known as The University of Manchester.
Professional society founded as The Society of Telegraph Engineers in 1871. It was renamed the The Institution of Electrical Engineers (IET) in 1887. In 1924 the institution obtained from the Privy Council the right for corporate members to describe themselves as Chartered Electrical Engineers. It was registered as a charity in 1963, and joined with the Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) in 2006 to form the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
Conditions governing accessOpen access.
Conditions governing ReproductionCopies may be supplied in accordance with current copyright legislation and Science Museum Group terms and conditions. Copyright in original works by Ken C Johnson has been transferred to the museum. Copyright in third party works compiled by Ken C Johnson for research purposes has not been transferred to the museum.
