HISTORY
THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGISTS
5. Liveryman Ernest Morriss
M
y own memories cover the years from the 1950’s, the birth of the general
application of computers - in a commercial environment - through the time when
information technology came into being, to the present day when everything
IT-orientated is now arguably taken for granted.
At the end of my National (Military) Service, in September 1954, I joined the British
Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) as a (trainee) Technical Serviceman. After nearly a
year’s training in the company’s punched card equipment, I was transferred to the City of
London branch, where I assisted customers in the use of the equipment for accounting and
administrative processes. BTM was then developing its commercial computer, the HEC4,
which led to the 1201 computer, and later the 202 when the drum storage was enhanced.
In 1957 I was sent on a course to learn how to program the computer and then took part in
advising several organisations which had signed up for one of these machines.
A year later I was appointed by one of their customers, CT Bowring & Co (Insurance) Ltd.
(CTB), to lead a team preparing for the introduction of a 1201. One was duly delivered in
1960 at which time I became the data processing manager, although my main role seemed
to be debugging programs! Whilst successful at the time, this range of machines was
supplanted by more powerful ones, the Company replacing the 1202 by the Honeywell
400 in March 1965, which was chosen mainly because of its superior magnetic tape
facilities, without which we would have struggled. I remained with the Company until the
end of 1966 when I joined Cooper Brothers & Co (CB & Co), the management consultancy Liveryman Ernest Morriss
arm of its chartered accountancy practice, which had extended its services into giving
advice on computer systems.
In the late 1960’s and even in the 1970’s the lack of program