Ferranti Limited was a major UK electrical engineering and equipment firm, known primarily for their defense electronics and power grid systems.

Ferranti is also famous in the computer industry for building the first commercial computers, the Ferranti Star, which went on sale in 1949 and started their computer business which lasted into the 1970s. They had influential collaborations with the University computing departments at Manchester and Cambridge, which resulted in the development of the Mercury and Atlas machines (Manchester); and the Atlas 2 (Cambridge) aka Titan machine.

History

Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti (1864-1930) was born in Liverpool, his Italian father a photographer and his mother a concert pianist. Ferranti showed a remarkable talent for electrical engineering from his childhood. His first invention, at the age of 13, was an arc light for street lighting. At the age of 16 he built and patented an electrical generator called the "Ferranti Dynamo" with the help of Lord Kelvin. He naturally went into this business in 1882 when he set up shop in London designing various electrical devices.

In the late 1880s there was a debate within the industry about the transmission of electrical power, known as the Battle of the Systems. Thomas Edison supported a direct current (DC) based system, largely due to his holding many key patents and having set up some power plants supplying DC power. His rival, Nikola Tesla, supported an alternating current system that was being backed by Westinghouse and General Electric.

Ferranti bet on AC early on, and was one of the few experts in this system in the UK. In 1887 the London Electric Supply Corporation (LESCo ) hired Ferranti for the design of their power station at Deptford. He designed the building, the generating plant and the distribution system. On its completion in 1891 it was the first truly modern power station, supplying high-voltage AC power that was then "stepped down" for consumer use on each street. This basic system remains in use today around the world.

Success followed and Ferranti started producing electrical equipment for sale. Soon the company was looking for considerably more room. Prices in the London area were too high, so the company moved to Hollinwood, Scotland in 1896. To this day they are generally throught of as a Scottish company. By the end of the next decade Ferranti had amassed 176 patents for such things as the alternator, high-tension cables, circuit breakers, transformers and turbines.

Through the early part of the century power was supplied by small companies, typically as an offshoot of plant set up to provide power to local industry. Each plant supplied a different standard, which made the mass production of electrical equipment for home users rather difficult. In 1910 Ferranti started an effort to standardize the power supply, which eventually culminated in the National Grid in 1926.

New factories were set up across Scotland, notably in the north-west which was happy for the jobs. Eventually they set up branch-plants in several British Commonwealth countries, including Canada, Australia and Singapore, as well as Germany and the US.

Electronics and Computers

During World War II, Ferranti became a major supplier of electronics. In the post-war era this became a large segment of their company, with various branches supplying radar sets, avionics and other military electronics, as well as their famous foray into computer design and manufacture in the late 1940s into the 1960s.

In collaboration with the University of Manchester they developed the Mercury and Atlas designs; later in 1961, in collaboration with University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory they developed the Titan (prototype Atlas 2) which was the mainstay of scientific computing in Cambridge for nearly 8 years.

Dissolution

Ferranti concentrated on their defence sales from the late 1980s. In March 1990 the General Electric Company (GEC) acquired parts of Ferranti's defence business followed by the purchase of Ferranti Dynamics in late 1993.

Ferranti eventually purchased ICS, a US based contractor, only to find their profits were based on illegal arms sales. The massive financial and legal difficulties that resulted forced the company into bankruptcy in December 1993. GEC took this opportunity to acquire the remaining defence businesses of Ferranti. This included Defence Systems Integration and Ferranti's 50% share in Ferranti Thomson Sonar Systems.

Today the remaining divisions of Ferranti continue as independent companies, after being split from the holding company in the bankruptcy agreement.