Details

Records of the British Telecommunications Research Technical Society which was the technical society of British Telecommunications Research Ltd (BTR). The BTR Technical Society was inaugurated under Brigadier J B Hickman’s Presidency on July 15th, 1949 at a meeting attended by Brigadier Hickman, Mr Morrell and 59 members of BTR staff. British Telecommunications Research Ltd was a subsidiary of Automatic Telephone and Electric Company Ltd (AT&E) of Liverpool and was also sponsored by BICC Group. It was created in the 1940s and was based at Taplow Court, Taplow. It should not be confused with the company name British Telecommunications (trading as British Telecom) which is unrelated and was created in 1980 (formerly Post Office Telecommunications). In 1961 Plessey merged with the British Ericsson Telephone company and AT&E to become Britain's largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment with the combined group retaining the Plessey name. At that time the BTR Technical Society's name changed to the Plessey Technical Society. Following the 1988 merger of the Plessey and GEC telecom units to form GEC-Plessey Telecommunications (GPT), Taplow Court was closed and sold and the Plessey Technical Society ceased to exist. A finding aid for this collection exists which lists all the Chairmen, Secretaries and Treasurers of the Society from the 1949/50 session up until the 1986/87 session - this can be obtained from the IET Archivist. [Note: the BTR in-house journal does not form part of this collection and can be found at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies - see Allied Materials tab]