Ferranti Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Ferranti Limited was a major UK electrical engineering and equipment firm, known primarily for their defense electronics and power grid systems. They are 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. Concentrating on their defense sales from the late 1980s, 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 in bankruptcy in 1994. Today the various divisions of Ferranti continue as independant companies, after being split out from the holding company in the bankruptcy agreement.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 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.
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