BBC Engineering Division
Introduction
Engineers made it possible for the BBC to come into existence and Engineering Division was a major part of the BBC.
New: Listen to talks about the first 40 years of BBC Engineering.
Examples of engineering achievements through the decades
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| 1920s: | Outside Broadcast of The Boat Race. SB network (providing Simultaneous Broadcast of a programme from many transmitters). |
| 1930s: | “High Definition” TV service in London. Many new studios, with greatly improved acoustics. Empire Service on HF. |
| 1940s: | Studios (e.g. at Evesham) and powerful transmitting stations built to support war effort. Third Programme service. |
| 1950s: | FM radio. TV in most regions in time for Coronation. Cablefilm developed for transatlantic television transmission by telephone cable. |
| 1960s: | Colour TV. Sound-in-Syncs (saving money). Analogue standards conversion. Unattended TV transmitters (saving money). |
| 1970s: | Digital distribution of stereo sound. Teletext. Automation (saving money). World's first digital television recorder developed. |
| 1980s: | TV service extended to remote populations. Digital video processing e.g. rotating world. RDS (revolutionised FM reception in cars). |
| 1990s: | BBC centres linked by digital broadcast network. Digital Audio Broadcasting. Automated HF transmitting station built in Thailand. |
BBC engineers were central to these achievements, but nearly all engineering developments are the result of contributions from many people in various organisations and their contributions are gratefully acknowledged. This is only a small selection, so if you would like to highlight others then please email. |
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Senior engineering posts can be seen in this list of Abbreviated Titles which covered the whole of the BBC.
Click here for Recollections of BBC Engineering.
Click here to see a brochure for the 1972 Engineers-in-Charge Annual Meeting, which marked 50 years of BBC engineering (10MB PDF file). The people who attended are pictured in the brochure, but you can also click the picture below to see a larger version. Make sure that your browser is not set to automatic image resizing. In Internet Explorer go to Tools/Internet Options/Advanced and under Multimedia uncheck Enable automatic image resizing. In Firefox use Ctrl++.
Engineering Division's leaders, listed below, were members of the BBC's Board of Management.
 Captain Peter Eckersley |
1923 - 1929 | Chief Engineer |
 Sir Noel Ashbridge |
1929 - 1952 | Chief Engineer renamed Director of Technical Services |
 Sir Harold Bishop |
1952 - 1963 | Director of Technical Services renamed Director of Engineering in 1956 |
 Sir Francis McLean |
1963 - 1968 | Director of Engineering |
 Sir James Redmond |
1968 - 1978 | Director of Engineering |
| Dr Bryce McCrirrick CBE | 1978 - 1987 | Director of Engineering |
| Dr Bill Dennay | 1987 - 1993 | Director of Engineering |
A significant proportion of the BBC's staff worked for Engineering Division:
| Date | Number of staff in Engineering Division |
| 1945 | 3700 |
| 1955 | 4800 |
| 1968 | 7000 |
| 1969 | 4200 |
The reduction
was due to the transfer of some engineering staff to the Television, Radio and External Broadcasting
Directorates. (This web site is predominantly about Engineering Division,
but the scope is intended to include all engineering activities relating to the
BBC.)
In 1993 Engineering Division was abolished and the remaining engineers
become part of BBC Resources!
Engineering activities are summarised on the Home page and further details can be seen by clicking on the area of interest.
Engineering Personnel Department only appears under Training at present (E.P.D. Management course pictures).
The following areas are not presently within the
scope of this web site, but this could change on request:-
Engineering Accounts Department.
Computer Services* (mainframe computer systems for Engineering Accounts and
Central Stores etc.).
*Steve Snook contributed the following message in March 2009:
"As far as I know, Computer Services were never part of Engineering Division.
Management Services Group (MSG) had two departments concerned with computing in
the 1970's. These were Computer Planning Department, based at Colgate House in
Oxford Street and Computer Operations based at Sulgrave House in Shepherd's
Bush. They had many computer projects running across all the BBC Directorates. I
was attached to Computer Planning Department as a Development Engineer in
1974/5. As part of Personnel Directorate, MSG were also involved with
organisation, methods and grading."