Bloomfield James Warman (25 July 1924 – 21 November 1984) was an English electrical engineer. He was involved with the design of electronic

telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syst ...

s in the 1960s and 1970s. He was responsible for the concept of both the TXE1 and TXE3 systems, which were

reed switch Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * Re ...

-based electronic exchanges. The development of these exchanges was carried out by a consortium of British telecom manufacturers in conjunction with the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...

. The ideas in these exchanges were later developed, by others, into the TXE4 exchanges - which, at their peak in the early 1990s, catered for more than 25% of the UK subscribers. Warman was born at Westcombe Park in South London. During World War II he served in the

Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME ) is a corps of the British Army that maintains the equipment that the Army uses. The corps is described as the "British Army's Professional Engineers". History Prior to REME's for ...

. His career started off Siemens Brothers at Woolwich, and he remained there when

Associated Electrical Industries Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) was a British holding company formed in 1928 through the merger of the British Thomson-Houston Company (BTH) and Metropolitan-Vickers electrical engineering companies. In 1967 AEI was acquired by GEC, to c ...

(AEI) took over the company. AEI was then taken over by the

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250 ...

, who, in 1968, closed down the development of TXE exchanges in favour of

crossbar switch In electronics and telecommunications, a crossbar switch (cross-point switch, matrix switch) is a collection of switches arranged in a matrix configuration. A crossbar switch has multiple input and output lines that form a crossed pattern of int ...

systems. All the AEI staff were sacked, including those on the TXE project. Warman joined American company GTE International as European technical director based in Milan, taking with him some members of his AEI team. There, Warman persisted in basing his developments on reed electronic (analogue) principles, when it had already become clear that fully electronic digital switches were now the obvious path forward. Some time later, GTE decided to close the development team in Europe. Warman received the Prince Philip Medal of The City and Guilds Institute in 1966. He held over 100 patents. He returned to the UK and set up his own company, but it was not a success, and his health failed. He died in November 1984.

References

External links

JW Patent for Magnetic switchesJW Patent for Automatic exchange systems
{{DEFAULTSORT:Warman, Jim English electrical engineers British telecommunications engineers British Army personnel of World War II 1924 births 1984 deaths