037 Chartwell court Brook road London (7139300585)

The Post Office Research Station was first established as a separate section of 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. ...

in 1909. In 1921, the Research Station moved to

Dollis Hill Dollis Hill is an area in northwest London, which consists of the streets surrounding the 35 hectares (86 acres) Gladstone Park. It is served by a London Underground station, Dollis Hill, on the Jubilee line, providing good links to central Lo ...

, north west

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, initially in ex-army huts. The main permanent buildings at Dollis Hill were opened in 1933 by Prime Minister

Ramsay MacDonald James Ramsay MacDonald (; 12 October 18669 November 1937) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 ...

. In 1968 it was announced that the station would be relocated to a new centre to be built at

Martlesham Heath Martlesham Heath village is situated 6 miles (10 km) east of Ipswich, in Suffolk, England. This was an ancient area of heathland and latterly the site of Martlesham Heath Airfield. A "new village" was established there in the mid-1970s and t ...

in Suffolk. This was formally opened on 21 November 1975 by

Queen Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elisabeth or Elizabeth the Queen may refer to: Queens regnant * Elizabeth I (1533–1603; ), Queen of England and Ireland * Elizabeth II (1926–2022; ), Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms * Queen ...

and is today known as

Adastral Park Adastral Park is a science campus based on part of the old Royal Air Force Station at Martlesham Heath, near Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk. When the site opened it was known as the Post Office Research Station, but it was subsequen ...

. The old Dollis Hill site was released for housing, with the main building converted into a block of luxury flats and an access road named Flowers Close, in honour of

Tommy Flowers Thomas Harold Flowers MBE (22 December 1905 – 28 October 1998) was an English engineer with the British General Post Office. During World War II, Flowers designed and built Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer, to help ...

. Much of the rest of the site contains affordable housing administered by Network Housing.

Paddock A paddock is a small enclosure for horses. In the United Kingdom, this term also applies to a field for a general automobile racing competition, particularly Formula 1. Description In Canada and the United States of America, a paddock is a small ...

, a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

concrete two-level underground bunker, was built in secret in 1939 as an alternative Cabinet War Room underneath a corner of the Dollis Hill site. Its surface building was demolished after the war.

Research

The first transatlantic radio telephone service. In 1943 the world's first programmable electronic computer,

Colossus Colossus, Colossos, or the plural Colossi or Colossuses, may refer to: Statues * Any exceptionally large statue ** List of tallest statues ** :Colossal statues * ''Colossus of Barletta'', a bronze statue of an unidentified Roman emperor * ''Col ...

Mark 1, was built by

and his team, followed in 1944 and 1945 by nine Colossus Mark 2s. These were used at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher was the process that enabled the British to read high-level German army messages during World War II. The British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park decrypted many communications betwe ...

. In 1957

ERNIE Ernie is a masculine given name, frequently a short form (hypocorism) of Ernest, Ernald, Ernesto, or Verner. It may refer to: People * Ernie Accorsi (born 1941), American football executive * Ernie Adams (disambiguation) * Ernie Afaganis (born c ...

(Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment) was built for the government's Premium Bond lottery, by Sidney Broadhurst's team. In 1971 Samuel Fedida conceived

Viewdata Viewdata is a Videotex implementation. It is a type of information retrieval service in which a subscriber can access a remote database via a common carrier channel, request data and receive requested data on a video display over a separate c ...

and the

Prestel Prestel (abbrev. from press telephone), the brand name for the UK Post Office Telecommunications's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979. It achieved a maxim ...

service was launched in 1979.

Notable staff

* John Bray * William W. Chandler * Allen Coombs *

Dick Dyott Dick, Dicks, or Dick's may refer to: Media * ''Dicks'' (album), a 2004 album by Fila Brazillia * Dicks (band), a musical group * ''Dick'' (film), a 1999 American comedy film * "Dick" (song), a 2019 song by Starboi3 featuring Doja Cat Names ...

* James H. Ellis * Samuel Fedida *

Harry Fensom Harry William Fensom (4 February 1921 – 1 November 2010) was an English electronic engineer with the GPO. During World War II he worked with Tommy Flowers at Bletchley Park on Colossus, the world's first electronic computer, that helped to d ...

Gil Hayward Gilbert Osborne Hayward (16 October 1917—9 October 2011) was a World War II cryptographer and inventor of the first electronic seal security device. Career As a pupil at Kilburn Grammar School, Hayward became captivated by machines and scienc ...

Ralph Archibald Jones Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf"). The most common forms ...

. Developed espionage and counter equipment, helped invent the listening devices used for locating buried bomb victims in London and helped devise the standard for telephone systems in Europe. *

Arnold Lynch Arnold Lynch (3 June 1914 – 13 November 2004) was an English engineer, known for his work on an optical tape reader which was used in the construction of the Colossus, the first electronic computer. By 1944 ten Colossus computers were installed ...

Frank Morrell Frank or Franks may refer to: People * Frank (given name) * Frank (surname) * Franks (surname) * Franks, a medieval Germanic people * Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang Cu ...

* Gordon Radley *

Stephanie Shirley Dame Vera Stephanie "Steve" Shirley (previously Brook, née Buchthal; born 16 September 1933) is an information technology pioneer, businesswoman and philanthropist (naturalised British in 1951). Early life Shirley was born as Vera Buch ...

* Haakon Sørbye * Eric Speight * Henry John Josephs (H. J. Josephs). Entered the Research Station as a draughtsman but eventually rose to a senior research position being known for his mathematical skills. He was a great admirer of

Oliver Heaviside Oliver Heaviside FRS (; 18 May 1850 – 3 February 1925) was an English self-taught mathematician and physicist who invented a new technique for solving differential equations (equivalent to the Laplace transform), independently develope ...

and his work, of which Josephs wrote a monograph on the Heaviside Operational calculus. Josephs was also involved with the IEE (now

Institution of Engineering and Technology The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a multidisciplinary professional engineering institution. The IET was formed in 2006 from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), dating back to 1871, and ...

) in which he presented a number of papers at the Heaviside Centenary Meeting in 1950 and went on to examine, repair and study papers of Oliver Heaviside found under the floorboards of a house in Paignton, Devon, where Oliver Heaviside had once lived.

References

{{Coord, 51.561629, -0.238401, display=title, format=dms Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Brent General Post Office History of computing History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom 20th century in London 1921 establishments in the United Kingdom 1921 in London