Product Description

This is the eccentric story of one of the most bizarre marriages in the history of British business: the invention of the world's first office computer and the Lyons tea shop. The Lyons tea shops were one of the great British institutions, providing a cup of tea and a penny bun through the depression, the war, austerity and on into the 1960s and 1970s. Yet Lyons also has a more surprising claim to history. In the 1930s John Simmons, a young graduate in charge of the clerks' offices that totalled all the bills issued by the "Nippies" and kept track of the costs of all the tea, cakes and other goods distributed to the nation's cafes and shops, became obsessed by the new ideas of scientific management. He had a dream: to build a machine that would automate the millions of tedious transactions and process them in as little time as possible. In this text, Georgina Ferry recounts the story of Simmons' quest for the first office computer - the Lyons Electronic Office. It would take 20 years and involve some of the most brilliant young minds in Britain. Interwoven with the story of the building of LEO is the story of early computing itself from the Difference Engine of Charles Babbage to the codecracking computers of Bletchley Park and the instantly obsolescent ENIAC, developed in the US. It is also the story of the post-war British computer business; why did it lose the initiative? Why did America succeed while British design was often superior? Georgina Ferry's account of a forgotten triumph in British history is a corrective and a celebration of one of the least likely marriages in business history: the Lyons tea shop and the cutting edge of computer science.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #425376 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 220 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Whether you like a good story, social history, computers, or are just nostalgic about Joe Lyons' "caffs", A Computer Called LEO is an appealing tale, illustrated with black and white photos, about the advent of the first computer.

Georgina Ferry conjures up the image of some 300 female accounts clerks, clacking away continuously on their Burroughs mechanical calculators checking bills against takings for the 250 or so J Lyons & Co high street teashops in the 1930s. The manager of the accounting operation in pre-war times was a bright young man called John Simmons. According to Ferry, as Simmons surveyed the room "all he saw was a waste of human intelligence" and he began to dream of the day when machines would be invented capable of doing all this work automatically. Within 10 years he made the first stage in that dream a reality by persuading the board of Lyons that their company must become the first in the world to build its own electronic digital computer. A Computer Called LEO is the wonderful story of this one remarkable man's ambition and success in achieving it.

Ferry interweaves LEO's story with the history of computing. British mathematicians have played an integral role in this development ever since the days of Charles Babbage (1792-1871). Like Simmons, Babbage had been interested in improved factory management. The ultimately tragic figure of Alan Turing and the wartime development of computers at Bletchley Park also figure in the lead up to LEO.

Development was delayed by World War II and Ferry expertly goes on to tell how, on November 29, 1951, LEO took over Bakery Valuations and became the first computer in the world to run a routine office job. But it wasn't until 1954 that LEO was judged reliable enough to finally take over from the clerks. By the following year, John Simmons had fulfilled his dream and was able to declare that "LEO leaves clerks free to use their brains to their own greater benefit and the service of the community". One needs to add that to Lyons & Co's great credit this was achieved without any compulsory redundancies; indeed employment increased. Britain led the world in computer development at the time and there was considerable potential for the turning of a cottage industry in to an international money-maker, but that required considerable investment.

The end of Ferry's story of LEO tells of how Britain let an advantage slip from their grasp as US money, muscle, management and determination took over and IBM went on to win the day. --Douglas Palmer.

Review
'Stylish and lucid, a combination of social history and science, Georgina Ferry's fascinating book reveals how one of Britain's most famous firms, J.S. Lyons, went from teacakes to computers, becoming a technological pioneer.' Brenda Maddox on THE COMMON THREAD: A Story of Science, Politics, Ethics and the Human Genome (co-authored with John Sulston) 'Unputdownable stuff ... an insider's story of one of the century's greatest technopolitical ventures' Guardian 'I found this a riveting account of what was going on behind the scenes... Anyone who is fascinated by the politics and ethics of research should read The Common Thread.' Financial Times 'A compelling and frank account.' The Times on Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life 'The science book of the year' Independent 'This life of Hodgkin is in the top rank of scientific biographies, hooking the reader from the first page and keeping you absorbed to the end.' Sunday Times

Until a man named John Simmons saw the potential of computers for undertaking some of the huge amount of clerical operations performed by Lyons's staff, they were almost exclusively used for solving complex mathematical and scientific problems. This is the story of Simmons's attempts to build a computer that would be suitable for business use, and of the talented and visionary staff he attracted to work with him. The title of this book does not even begin to do justice to its enormous breadth of scope: Ferry's book touches on such diverse topics as social history, business management techniques and scientific discovery, and it makes fascinating reading. As in her previous books (Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life and The Common Thread), while Ferry's primary focus is on scientific discoveries, she is equally interested in the pioneers themselves. Her admiration and affection for the people she is writing about shine out of the pages, and this makes a book on what appears a quite unprepossessing subject a truly enjoyable read. It is also a timely reminder, as we become more and more reliant on computers, that only 50 years ago they were a room-sized novelty. (Kirkus UK)

Fanny Blake, The Times
'absorbing ... meticulously researched and cogently written'

Customer Reviews

Business needs came first for the teashop company's computer
There are two stories in this satisfying little book: one the story of a computer, or rather line of computers, and the other the story of a company. The curve of the Lyons company is traced from the company's origins in catering for exhibitions in the 19th century, through its heights in the 20s and 30s when its tea shops were the clerical worker's favoured lunch stop, to the post-way years of austerity when formica had replaced marble and service by waitresses (or "Nippys") had given way to self-service. At this point a visionary management, always looking for increased efficeincy in the business of getting buns from bakeries to plates as cost-effectively as possible, starts to automate its clerical functions by computer. What was so remarkable about this, as Georgina Ferry makes very clear, was that no company in the woorld had previously done this. Computers had been tools for universities and government researchers, not management information systems for businesses. What emerges clearly from her account is that the systems developers never lost sight of business needs in their extraordinary efforts to invent an industry from scratch. This book has several delights: the description of mercury delay lines shows how difficult it was to implement memory in the pre-semiconductor age and the continuous Swiss Roll bakery is a hard image to forget.

Ironically in view of its origins in "temperance fare", Lyons was swallowed up by a brewery at last. The computer subsidiary, having blazed a trail in business automation, was itself consumed by English Electric to become part of ICL and later Fujitsu. Georgina Ferry - wisely - does not draw too explicitly conclusions about British entrepreneurial skills from the whole history: she leaves us however with an impression that the history of computing in Britain and elsewhere might have been very different if opportunities had been grasped.

Entertaining and illuminating
This little book is a fascinating look at one of the little known stories of computer history: that UK catering giant Lyons not only built the world first business computer, but then set up their own company (Lyons Electronic Office or LEO for short)to sell the machines to European businesses trying to get back on their feet after the war.
The book is well written, and easy enough to understand whatever your understanding of computers is like. The notion of a computer is introduced early on, as well as the peculiar requirements of the massive Lyons empire that led to the introduction of the LEO. The book not only charts the development and introduction of the machine, but also the ultimate decline of the once proud company and the fate of its groudbreaking technology. The story is ultimately a typical story of an economically challenged post-war British company trying to recover its pre-war heyday, but the tone of the book is always upbeat, concentrating on the achievements other than their ultimate failure.
Computer history owes a great deal to British efforts. The UK built (in secret) the first wholly digital computer (Colossus), the first electronically-programmable computer and the first dedicated office computer but these achievements are often overlooked in other books which are mostly written by American authors and concentrate on the US story (fair enough) but are then presented as the whole story. This little book is a timely, readable and utterly likeable reminder that once upon the time the UK led the world in computer research, development and application and that the US hasn't always been the leader in the field.
Highly recommended.

A fascinating story well told
I'm only a few chapters into this book, but am back to buy another copy to give to a friend.

If you are interested in how innovation happens in business, or in the development of the computer industry, or in the application from first principles of computers to real-world problems, or in productive co-operation between industry and academia, or in user-centred product development, or in how immigrants can benefit an economy, then there is raw material for you in this book. It is (at least as far as I have read) a gripping story rather than an academic analysis- read how it was, and then if you feel so inclined draw your own conclusions.

When I joined the computer industry in 1965, a friend in IBM confided in me that the Leo (Lyons Electronic Office) series of computers (already in there last days) were IBM's most serious rival in commercial computing. This book makes this entirely credible. If you're British, read it and reflect on how British people managed to invent both commercial computing and the web, and yet Britain manages now to be a distant follower in both areas of endeavour.