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VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20151006T112624Z
DTSTART:20151020T120000Z
DTEND:20151020T130000Z
SUMMARY:"Machines must be servants not masters": From the Post Office to 
 British Telecom\, 1959-84 - Jacob Ward (UCL)
UID:{http://www.columbasystems.com/customers/uom/gpp/eventid/}s8e-if5nuu9
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DESCRIPTION:This seminar is part of the lunchtime seminar series for the 
 Centre for the History of Science\, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM). Lun
 chtime seminars are typically no more than 30 minutes in length\, follow
 ed by a period for audience questions (ending before 2pm). All are welco
 me.\n\nJacob Ward (University College London)\n\n"Machines must be serva
 nts not masters": From the Post Office to British Telecom\, 1959-84\n\nA
 bstract:\n\nThis paper explores the relationship between technological c
 hange and organisational reform in the post-war Post Office\, and highli
 ghts how management of a nationalised technological system necessitates 
 management of the relationship between man and machine.\nIn 1955\, the B
 ritish government issued a White Paper outlining new reforms for the Pos
 t Office\, giving it greater freedom from the Treasury\, so that it migh
 t act with more commercial freedom. In 1958\, Queen Elizabeth II unveile
 d Subscriber Trunk Dialling in Bristol - the Post Office’s new mechanise
 d trunk network for British telephone users. Technological development a
 nd organisational reform were early foci for the Post Office in the post
 -war period\, but it soon became apparent that this concentration on the
  machinery of government and infrastructure had led to a neglect of the 
 humans - subscribers and staff alike - in the system.\n\nDrawing on a br
 oad range of Post Office and other government documents\, this paper add
 resses the changes to the telecommunications system in Britain on three 
 levels: technological change in the development of the network\; organis
 ational change as the Post Office slowly hived off from the Civil Servic
 e\; and the human changes necessitated by these prior developments. The 
 history of Post Office telecommunications in post-war Britain has been n
 eglected in the wider literature\, and I will argue that a broad view of
  this history highlights the tensions unique to a government department 
 that had to balance its duty to the taxpayer and subscriber with its dut
 y to develop the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure.\n\n[Note: T
 his is part of my larger thesis project (in progress)\, “Research Transp
 lanted and Privatised: Post Office/British Telecom R&D in the Digital an
 d Information Era”]\n
STATUS:TENTATIVE
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
LOCATION:2.57\, Simon Building\, Manchester
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