Ronald Roy Bradbury was an electrical engineer with knowledge of design requirements for prototype and mass production of high quality complex electronic/electro-mechanical/light-electrical equipment using the latest design techniques. Bradbury worked for a number of comapnies as an electrical engineer and draughtsman at Ferranti Ltd, Fairey Engineering Ltd and the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory.

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.

In 1959 Fairey Aviation Co became Fairey Company Ltd, a holding company for the Fairey group. The general engineering activities of the group were were concentrated in Stockport Aviation Co. whose name was changed to Fairey Engineering. The company was acquired by Williams Holdings in 1986.

Approval for a nuclear physics research laboratory at Daresbury was given by the Minister for Science in 1963. The high-energy particle accelerator NINA (Northern Institute's Nuclear Accelerator) was constructed between 1963 and 1965 and first operated in 1966. The Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory officially opened in 1967. Synchrotron Radiation (SR) research began at Daresbury Laboratory in 1968, with the approval of a Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SRF) that made use of radiation from NINA. The SRF was built between 1970 and 1972, and ran until 1977, when NINA closed. The first international symposium for SR users took place at Daresbury Laboratory in 1973 and provided early impetus for the development of the world's first dedicated X-ray SR source. The second-generation Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS), a purpose-built storage ring for SR research, was approved in October 1974. The four-year construction project began in April 1975. Construction and commissioning of the linac and booster synchrotron was completed in 1979. Construction of the electron storage ring was completed in 1980. 30 June 1980 saw the circulation of the first beam in the storage ring. Construction of the first two beamlines was completed the same year and on 7 November 1980 the SRS was formally opened by the Minister of State for Science. The first scheduled operation of the SRS for users started in spring 1981, and the electron beam operating current and energy achieved full design specification in March 1982. In November 1982, a 5-tesla superconducting wiggler magnet came into operation to extend the spectrum of X-rays available to higher energies. SR research grew rapidly in the 1980s, and in October 1986 the SRS was shut down for an upgrade to the High Brightness Lattice (HBL). Construction was completed in March 1987. Following the recommissioning of the storage ring and beamlines in September 1987, attention was focused on improving the quality of the photon beam for users. This involved modernising all beamline photon-position monitoring systems and upgrading the systems used to monitor and control electron beam position. A 6 tesla wiggler unit was installed between November 1991 and June 1992, and came into use in July 1993. In 1997 a share of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Dr. John Walker for research involving data collection at the SRS - this is believed to be the only Nobel Prize to include work on a SR source. A second major rebuilding of the storage ring happened from October to December 1998, when two 2 tesla hybrid permanent magnet multipole wigglers, designed at Daresbury, were installed. Between 2000 and 2004, a further three enhancements to the SRS took place: a protein crystallography facility; a 2.4 tesla hybrid permanent magnet multipole wiggler; and an advanced infra-red beamline. User operation of the SRS ended in August 2008. SR research transferred to the DIAMOND third generation synchrotron facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford in 2008. Daresbury Laboratory continues to operate as a research facility in fields such as accelerator science, bio-medicine, physics, chemistry, materials, engineering and computational science. It is now part of Sci-Tech Daresbury, one of two national science and innovation campuses, which supports scientists, researchers and industry by providing a collaborative and innovative environment to perform cutting-edge research.