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The Calculating Bureau 223 Bristol Road

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malvern

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223 Bristol Road The Calculating Bureau

This house on the Bristol Road was next to the former Edgbaston School for Girls (later becoming The Martineau Teachers Centre) has a very rich history, being one of the largest private houses with the largest gardens on the Bristol Road. The gardens contained a large centrally heated greenhouse in which grapes were grown. There was also a tennis court and orchard.

It was the only house on the Bristol Road to have its own private driveway to the stable block at the rear of the house. The stable block was very large--today three houses stand on part of the stable site!

In the 50s it became home to THE CALCULATING BUREAU and THE COMPTOMETER SCHOOL. They used mechanical computers-Power Samas and Holerith and IBM machines (punch card machines)

They later moved, around 1960, into the city centre becoming one of the first companies to use the new IBM computers. They also develop a hotel software package that is still used to day by many large hotels today. The Partners (Directors) were Marion Murtagh and Bill Powell.

The house went onto be the headquarters for the NSPCC and then the was used by an advertising company and finally by Leapfrog Nurseries. The house is now up far sale at £1,000,000 but has been empty for over a year.

If anyone has any information about this company or the house I would be please to hear from him or her.

Especially trying to trace the building maintenance man (Tony) and his assistant. Mr Lewis from the engineers, Jean Bisp (Sunday Mercury beauty queen of Birmingham) Mr White from the offices and Miss Kemp. Mrs Eyres & Mrs Robottom from the canteen. Mrs Wheeler and Mrs Hegarty(cleaners)


I thank you

Oh, the house is about 4 houses down from the junction of Priory Road on the right hand side going out of town. It is now opposite the council estate with the multi storey flats (formerly the site of the Mona House Hotel)
 
Malvern I used to work in the office of the service dept at Sumlock Comptometer in 1962 or 63. It was based in Fore street and the room next door housed the comptometer school. My friend Sheila Baggot was the teacher there. Can't bring to mind the other office next door. They repaired some other sort of calculating machine. Jean.
 
Re: 223 Bristol Road The Calculating Bureau

Hello...... I have only just seen this post - my cousin Jean Bisp worked here and also my Aunty Lil (Bisp).........

malvern said:
This house on the Bristol Road was next to the former Edgbaston School for Girls (later becoming The Martineau Teachers Centre) has a very rich history, being one of the largest private houses with the largest gardens on the Bristol Road. The gardens contained a large centrally heated greenhouse in which grapes were grown. There was also a tennis court and orchard.

It was the only house on the Bristol Road to have its own private driveway to the stable block at the rear of the house. The stable block was very large--today three houses stand on part of the stable site!

In the 50s it became home to THE CALCULATING BUREAU and THE COMPTOMETER SCHOOL. They used mechanical computers-Power Samas and Holerith and IBM machines (punch card machines)

They later moved, around 1960, into the city centre becoming one of the first companies to use the new IBM computers. They also develop a hotel software package that is still used to day by many large hotels today. The Partners (Directors) were Marion Murtagh and Bill Powell.

The house went onto be the headquarters for the NSPCC and then the was used by an advertising company and finally by Leapfrog Nurseries. The house is now up far sale at £1,000,000 but has been empty for over a year.

If anyone has any information about this company or the house I would be please to hear from him or her.

Especially trying to trace the building maintenance man (Tony) and his assistant. Mr Lewis from the engineers, Jean Bisp (Sunday Mercury beauty queen of Birmingham) Mr White from the offices and Miss Kemp. Mrs Eyres & Mrs Robottom from the canteen. Mrs Wheeler and Mrs Hegarty(cleaners)


I thank you

Oh, the house is about 4 houses down from the junction of Priory Road on the right hand side going out of town. It is now opposite the council estate with the multi storey flats (formerly the site of the Mona House Hotel)
Click to expand...
 
malvern said:
223 Bristol Road The Calculating Bureau

This house on the Bristol Road was next to the former Edgbaston School for Girls (later becoming The Martineau Teachers Centre) has a very rich history, being one of the largest private houses with the largest gardens on the Bristol Road. The gardens contained a large centrally heated greenhouse in which grapes were grown. There was also a tennis court and orchard.

It was the only house on the Bristol Road to have its own private driveway to the stable block at the rear of the house. The stable block was very large--today three houses stand on part of the stable site!

In the 50s it became home to THE CALCULATING BUREAU and THE COMPTOMETER SCHOOL. They used mechanical computers-Power Samas and Holerith and IBM machines (punch card machines)

They later moved, around 1960, into the city centre becoming one of the first companies to use the new IBM computers. They also develop a hotel software package that is still used to day by many large hotels today. The Partners (Directors) were Marion Murtagh and Bill Powell.

The house went onto be the headquarters for the NSPCC and then the was used by an advertising company and finally by Leapfrog Nurseries. The house is now up far sale at £1,000,000 but has been empty for over a year.

If anyone has any information about this company or the house I would be please to hear from him or her.

Especially trying to trace the building maintenance man (Tony) and his assistant. Mr Lewis from the engineers, Jean Bisp (Sunday Mercury beauty queen of Birmingham) Mr White from the offices and Miss Kemp. Mrs Eyres & Mrs Robottom from the canteen. Mrs Wheeler and Mrs Hegarty(cleaners)


I thank you

Oh, the house is about 4 houses down from the junction of Priory Road on the right hand side going out of town. It is now opposite the council estate with the multi storey flats (formerly the site of the Mona House Hotel)
Click to expand...
I was an comptometer apprentice here, my dad paid for me to have lessons on a Saturday morning, after I left school I was apprenticed here while they trained me. I still have my indentures. We used to work out the dividends for quite a few Coops, you had the comp operators, then the next section was the punch card operators, then the sorting machines, after that the big tabulators. I hated being a comp operator, my job at the end was working in a small office at the end of the office, sorting out problems. This usually entailed going down the garden to an outhouse where they stored the old branch books with the carbon copies of customer purchases, this enabled me to find where an error might have occurred. I met the gardener during my visits to the outhouse, a lovely old gentleman, he had been a prisoner of war and when he returned home after, he found his wife and child had been killed in an air raid.
 
Interesting to hear about the Bureau Tavernes, not heard of it before.

The list of services the Bureau offered in 1961. Viv.
 

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Tavernes said:
I was an comptometer apprentice here, my dad paid for me to have lessons on a Saturday morning, after I left school I was apprenticed here while they trained me. I still have my indentures. We used to work out the dividends for quite a few Coops, you had the comp operators, then the next section was the punch card operators, then the sorting machines, after that the big tabulators. I hated being a comp operator, my job at the end was working in a small office at the end of the office, sorting out problems. This usually entailed going down the garden to an outhouse where they stored the old branch books with the carbon copies of customer purchases, this enabled me to find where an error might have occurred. I met the gardener during my visits to the outhouse, a lovely old gentleman, he had been a prisoner of war and when he returned home after, he found his wife and child had been killed in an air raid.
Click to expand...

How interesting. I have been wondering how the Co-op dividend was computed. There must have been tens of thousands of those little perforated recipes with the share numbers, how was it all reconciled to each shareholder.
 
Morturn said:
How interesting. I have been wondering how the Co-op dividend was computed. There must have been tens of thousands of those little perforated recipes with the share numbers, how was it all reconciled to each shareholder.
Click to expand...
I also worked at their new offices, I think in Bromsgrove Street, off Hurst Street. They had computers there, they were in an air conditioned room, only the engineers were allowed access to them. They were very large, with spool tapes on the top front. All very new, I left soon after.
 
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