Eric George Lofthouse was an Electrical Engineer. After his National Service, he worked at A. V. Roe and, having been to college, set up his own business fixing radios and TVs in the 1950s. He moved to Lancashire from Wyke and continued to work for A. V. Roe. Lofthouse designed a unit for cutting materials out: the first numerically controlled machine that he worked on from the 1950s to the 1980s. Lofthouse then went on to ICL as a Commissioning Engineer. After his role was made redundant, he became a Senior Design Editor. Lofthouse's next move was to UMIST, working in the Psychology Department as a technician designing equipment for people with learning difficulties, before his retirement.

Ferranti International plc was an electrical engineering company originally established in 1883 as S Z de Ferranti. Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti had previously worked for Siemens Brothers in London before starting his first company, Ferranti, Thompson and Ince Ltd, in 1882 to manufacture alternators. When this company was wound up in 1883, de Ferranti bought back his patents in his alternator design and set up S Z de Ferranti with C P Sparks the same year. The business became a limited liability company in 1889, changing name to S Z de Ferranti Ltd. In 1896, the company moved from London to new premises in Hollinwood, Oldham, where land and labour were cheaper. In 1901, a new company name, Ferranti Ltd, was registered. Ferranti Ltd acquired the undertakings and assets of S Z de Ferranti Ltd the same year. The company ran into financial difficulties in 1903, largely through the investment in developing steam engines and dynamos. At the instigation of the debenture stockholders the company went into voluntary receivership. In 1905, the company was relaunched under a scheme of reconstruction, with production limited to the manufacture of switch gear, transformers and instruments. De Ferranti himself took a less active role in the running of the reconstituted company. Ferranti Ltd expanded its output in 1912 from electricity generating and distribution equipment to include electrical domestic appliances, establishing the Domestic Appliance Department. Expansion overseas began in 1913 when the Ferranti Electric Company of Canada was created as a separate business to the main company. By 1914, Ferranti Ltd was spread over several sites. It suspended normal production during the First World War and concentrated on the manufacture of shells. This was the first of Ferranti’s government defence contracts. The 1920s saw a resumption of manufacturing of civilian products. In 1923, production of audio frequency transformers signalled Ferranti Ltd’s move into electronics. In 1926, the company resumed manufacturing domestic appliances, beginning with electric fires, and began trading in the United States as Ferranti Electric Inc, New York. 1927 saw the re-establishment of the Domestic Appliance Department. In 1929, Ferranti Ltd began producing commercial radio receivers and in 1935 established its Moston radio factory, to which the Domestic Appliance Department moved in 1937. Shortly afterwards, television manufacturing started at the Moston site. Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti died in 1930, and his son Vincent de Ferranti became company chairman in his place. During the 1930s, the company became closely associated with devices that would feature strongly in the Second World War, including thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) used in radios and radar, avionics and naval instruments. During the Second World War, Ferranti Ltd produced marine radar equipment, gyro gun sights for fighters and one of the world’s first IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) radar systems, which reduced the possibility of firing on friendly aircraft or ships. In 1943, the company opened its Edinburgh factory to manufacture gyro gun sights. The Edinburgh site would become Ferranti Ltd’s hub for the manufacture of military defence equipment. Ferranti Ltd retained its interest in the defence sector after the Second World War. From 1948, the company began to develop guided missiles, especially the Bloodhound, at the Moston factory and later at the Wythenshawe factory. While the defence and communication market expanded throughout the 1950s, domestic products became unprofitable and were dropped. The company sold its radio and television interests to E K Cole Ltd in 1957, and the Domestic Appliance Department closed the following year. Ferranti became increasingly associated with ‘high-tech’ devices, including microwave communications equipment built at Poynton, near Stockport. Ferranti Ltd moved into computing in 1949, with the establishment of the Computer Department. The department produced the first Ferranti Mark I computer, a commercial version of the ‘Baby’ computer developed by Manchester University, at the Moston factory in 1951. It was the world’s first commercially produced computer. Computer production moved to a factory in West Gorton in 1956, but the Computer Division was sold to International Computers and Tabulators Ltd (ICT) in 1963. Other sections of the company continued to develop computer technology for more specialised applications. Ferranti Ltd also invested in semiconductor research, leading to its development of the first European microprocessor, the F-100L, at its Bracknell plant. Ferranti Ltd also produced non-standard silicon chips to suit individual customers’ needs. The Hollinwood factory continued to produce generating plant, such as large transformers, establishing the Distribution Transformer Department in 1957. This department operated until 1967. By 1975 the company was in financial difficulty and the British Government bought a 50% stake in Ferranti Ltd to enable the company to continue developing its telecommunications and computerised control systems. In 1984, the company was restructured into five operating divisions: Ferranti Defence Systems, Ferranti Industrial Electronics, Ferranti Computer Systems, Ferranti Electronics, and Ferranti Instrumentation. Ferranti Ltd merged with the US based International Signals and Control Group in 1987. The company traded very briefly as Ferranti plc in May 1988, prior to its official name change to Ferranti International Signal plc. The US company had been over-valued because of fraudulent practice. This affected the operation of the newly formed company, and the Defence and Guided Weapons Divisions were sold off to competitors in the area of defence work. Following the discovery of the fraud in 1989, Ferranti International Signal plc was renamed Ferranti International plc in 1990. The fraud amounted to a loss to Ferranti of £215 million as a result of this the company began legal proceedings against the former Chairman of International Signals & Control Mr James Guerin and three other senior employees. Ferranti were successful and Mr Guerin was ordered to pay $189.9 million to the Ferranti group. A similar judgement was given against the others who were also ordered to repay $189.9 million to the group. As a consequence of the fraud Ferranti had to dispose of several of its interests in order to raise badly needed cash to reduce its debt burden. Amongst the companies sold were Ferranti Defence Systems Group to the General Electric Company. The Italian companies owned by Ferranti International plc were sold to Finmeccancia plc. Various other smaller interests, including civil computer maintenance, Dundee components and laser business, and a joint venture Thomson-CSF SA were also sold. Not all the money was recovered, and on 1 December 1993 Ferranti International plc went into receivership, with the remaining company divisions sold off.

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.

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 in 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, and as 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 register as a private company. In 1927 Philips acquired the rest of the company and in 1929 Captain Mullard stepped down as managing director of both it and the Mullard Wireless Service Co. 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, 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 therefore 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, 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, and 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 Mullard Space Science Laboratory being opened in 1966 and 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.