History - introduction

Bagley Croft

From the very beginning of public service broadcasting by the British Broadcasting Company in 1922, BBC engineers have been at the forefront of broadcasting developments. When Captain P.P. Eckersley was appointed the Company's first Chief Engineer in 1923, the need for specialists in research and development became obvious, and so at the end of the year Captain A.G.D. West, who had worked with Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory was appointed Assistant Chief Engineer (Development). Then in February 1924, when H.L. Kirke became senior Development Engineer, West was made Assistant Chief Engineer (Research) - the BBC's first research engineer.

When the British Broadcasting Company became the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927, the Research and Development Sections moved from their cramped quarters at Savoy Hill to Avenue House, Clapham, in south London. The Research Section stopped functioning in 1929 when all its staff left, and the following year the remaining Development Section was named Research Department. Kirke was appointed Senior Research Engineer and he kept this position, later known as Head of Research Department, until 1950.

Designs Department was set up in 1947 to give impetus to the re-equipping of Radio and the re-opening of the television service after the war.

In the following thirty years there were very few developments in broadcasting engineering in which the Department did not have a hand. From the conversion of the 405-line service to 625 lines, the launch of colour, flim and video tape recording, telecine and caption generation, transmission of television by radio links, transatlantic cable and satellite, teletext and the BBC Microcomputer, Designs Department had a hand in them all.

In 1988 Designs Department merged with Equipment Department to form Designs & Equipment Department at Avenue House, Chiswick. This later slimmed to Design Group as the manufacturing process was outsourced.

Over the years a whole Engineering Division has evolved and metamorphosed. BBC Research & Development is the product of merging two deparments: Design Group and Research in 1993. BBC R&D provides the main strategy inputs for the BBC. This is balanced by the BBC's Technology Direction Group who are responsible for the adoption of standards and approval of technical investment.

In 1993, Research Department and Design Group merged to create BBC R&D. This Department was originally part of BBC Resources, but was transferred to Policy and Planning in recogntion of its strategic value in 1996, and now sits in the New Media and Technology Directorate.