Lavington - Moving Targets Elliott-Automation and the Dawn of the Computer Age in Britain, 1947-67

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Simon Lavington History of Computing Moving Targets Elliott-Automation and the Dawn of the Computer Age in Britain, 1947 67 10.1007/978-1-84882-933-6_1 Springer London 2011

1. The Navy Comes to Borehamwood

Simon Lavington 1

(1)

School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK

Simon Lavington

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Abstract

About a dozen miles north-west of the centre of London, just off the Great North Road, lies the village of Borehamwood. In the 1930s, this was in a rural part of Hertfordshire, in which were clustered several large film studios. Collectively known as the Elstree Studios , after the neighbouring village of Elstree, the Borehamwood area was, by 1939, home to the largest number of motion picture production facilities outside Hollywood.

1.1 A Place Called Borehamwood

About a dozen miles north-west of the centre of London, just off the Great North Road, lies the village of Borehamwood. In the 1930s, this was in a rural part of Hertfordshire, in which were clustered several large film studios. Collectively known as the Elstree Studios , after the neighbouring village of Elstree, the Borehamwood area was, by 1939, home to the largest number of motion picture production facilities outside Hollywood.

The onset of the Second World War was to add a new dimension. When the Admiralty needed a relatively unpopulated site on which to build a dispersal factory or shadow factory for the production of fuses for naval gunnery, they chose a field to the north-east of Bullbaiters Farm, about 2 miles outside the village of Borehamwood (see map in Fig. ). After the war, when this factorys products were no longer required, the Admiralty arranged for the redundant building to house a rather special research laboratory specifically to allow an old-established company called Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd. to pursue classified naval contracts. From Elliotts Borehamwood Laboratory sprang some of the most interesting ideas in the history of early British computers.

Fig. 1.1

A 1930s Ordnance Survey map of the village of Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, 12 miles north of the centre of London. To the right of the village, the locations Elliotts, Sports Area and MGM have each been marked by Ed Hersom, who joined the Borehamwood Research Laboratories of Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd. in 1947

Fig. 1.2

The frontage of the former Admiralty Fuse Factory at Borehamwood, which became the Research Laboratories of Elliott Brothers in 1946. This neat photograph, from the early 1950s, belies the sparse, utilitarian, appearance of the rear buildings and open ground that extended for about 300 m behind the brick-built frontage

This is the story of the Borehamwood computers, the people who designed and built them, and the applications to which they were put. It is in some senses the story of the birth of Information Technology in Britain, as seen through the eyes of Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd. and its successor company Elliott-Automation. Though Elliott-Automation was merged with other companies at the end of the 1960s, its spirit lives on today in the world-class avionics divisions of BAE Systems.

There are two remarkable things about Elliotts Borehamwood Laboratory. Firstly, there is its rapid growth from a cold start with a dozen scientists and engineers in October 1946 to a thriving establishment of over 400 by the autumn of 1950 and this in a period of postwar austerity. Secondly, the projects undertaken by the Laboratory were mostly of a classified (i.e. secret) nature, requiring the staff to work relatively independently from contact with other industrial and academic research establishments. It is only quite recently that some of the early Borehamwood defence reports have become officially available [], allowing computer historians to appreciate just how exciting were the ideas generated by the Laboratory.

The need for commercial confidentiality has left another, more subtle, legacy. The reputation of individual scientists and engineers depends upon their ability to publish results openly. The work of the Borehamwood computer pioneers has remained largely unsung. With the effective takeover of the Borehamwood Laboratorys parent company Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd. by a succession of larger multinational companies in the late 1960s, archival records have been dispersed or lost. Although (to quote a wartime dictum) those who needed to know, did know, many former Elliott employees have gone to their graves without being able to explain their own contribution to innovative computer projects and related radar and aerospace developments. An aim of this book is to redress the balance.

Just how it was that advanced research came to rural Borehamwood in 1946, and why a company of scientific instrument makers called Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd. became involved, is a story that we will return to in a while. Firstly, it is necessary to explain why the Admiralty conceived the need for a new laboratory in the first place. What sort of secret devices did the Navy require at the end of the war? Why could not the Admiraltys existing research establishments carry out the necessary development? The answer lies in the one word Radar .

Radar technology and the associated high-frequency (short wavelength) electronic know-how had dominated the Allies scientific war effort and had contributed very significantly to victory. Realising the increased vulnerability of surface ships to attack by modern aircraft, the Navy attached great importance to the development of radar-directed anti-aircraft gunnery and, furthermore, to radar-directed command and control in multi-ship combat situations. Manual and electromechanical systems on warships were gradually to be replaced by electronic systems. In a remarkable leap of faith, the Admiralty decided in 1946 that the most advanced of their envisaged future systems (called MRS5 ) should be digital, rather than the customary analogue. We shall see in how Borehamwoods first, and largest, Admiralty contract led to the design of the UKs first real-time online digital computer, the Elliott 152, for the control via radar of a warships anti-aircraft guns. Later on we reveal how, by the early 1960s, Elliott digital computers accounted for about half the computers delivered annually in Britain and Elliott-Automation was the market leader in the online control of industrial processes.

Since many of the pioneering computer designers in the UK had learned their electronic trade at government wartime radar establishments, it is helpful to give a little background history. John Coales, the founding Director of the Borehamwood Laboratory, was a key figure in naval radar research. It will become clear later in this book that the development of early digital computer memory systems is intimately connected to 1940s radar work. Thus, a short review of UK radar developments, and an introduction to the sometimes confusing set of technical abbreviations, is a useful prelude to the Borehamwood story and indeed to most of the other pioneering British computer projects of the late 1940s.

1.2 The Early Days of Naval Radar

It used to be assumed that radar was invented by Robert Watson-Watt in England. The truth is not so simple. It is now clear that closely guarded research in Germany and America was proceeding along somewhat similar lines to British endeavours in the late 1930s although at widely differing wavelengths. For example, in the Battle of the River Plate on 13 December 1939, the German pocket battleship Graf Spee was fitted with a radar rangefinder operating at a wavelength of 60 cm, whilst neither of the three British cruisers involved in the battle had radar. The previously unknown existence of the Graf Spees radar was only revealed to British scientists when photographs of the wreck of the Graf Spee were examined shortly after the battle [].

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