Elliott Brothers

Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd was an early computer company of the 1950s–60s in the United Kingdom,

• 1804 The company traces its descent from a firm of instrument makers founded in London around 1804.

• 1889 An improved indication piston. Described as 'the well-known opticians'

• 1920 Jan. Physical and Optical Societies Exhibition. Exhibitor of electrical instruments.

• WWII Manufactured parts for the De Havilland Mosquito

• 1946 The research laboratories were based at Borehamwood, originally set up in 1946.

• 1950 The first Elliott 152 computer appeared in 1950.

• 1960 The well-known computer scientist, Sir Tony Hoare was an employee there from August 1960 for eight years and wrote an ALGOL 60 compiler for the Elliott 803. He also worked on an operating system Elliott 503 Mark II for the computer, although this was less successful and abandoned along with "over thirty man-years of programming effort."

• 1963 John Lansdown pioneered the use of computers as an aid to planning; making perspective drawings on an Elliott 803 computer in 1963, modeling a building's lifts and services, plotting the annual fall of daylight across its site, as well as authoring his own computer aided design applications.

• 1968 Supplied plug stringers for the Winfrith power station

• Elliott Automation (as it had become) merged with the English Electric Co and was then taken over by International Computers and Tabulators (ICT); this marriage was forced by the British Government, who believed that the UK required a strong national computer company, shortly afterwards in 1968. The combined company was called International Computers Ltd. (ICL). Sometime later, ICL was acquired by GEC

Sources of Information

• [1] Wikipedia
• The Engineer of 16th Jan 1920 p62
• The Engineer of 3rd May 1889 p383
• The Engineer of 8th March 1968 p399
• Mosquito by C. Martin Sharp and Michael J. F. Bowyer. Published by Crecy Books in 1995. ISBN 0-947554-41-6