Manchester Mark I: Ferranti drum

• First Ferranti Drum to use on Prototype. (Catalogue of documents compiled by Hilary Kahn, c.2006)
  
• This image is likely to be a photo of the Ferranti-engineered drum for the Manchester Mark I computer, described in detail in $set205. It seems not to have any machining to accommodate head mounts etc as can be seen in the image in $set205 or in Thomas's recollections of the drum, and it's very clean, so this is probably a photo of the re-engineered prototype drum taken by Ferranti before delivery to the University. The Ferranti-branded cover on top of the drum is not visible on any other images of the prototype drum.
  
• The best digital copy of this image in this collection is one of 6 that were scanned in December 2023 by Toby Howard from prints held by Christopher Anderson. Christopher is the grandson of Henry Evison, a photographer whose studio was Mayfair Studios, referred to by the initials M.S. in Ferranti records, trading as M.S. Services Ltd, 23 Old Street, Ashton-Under-Lyne, Tel. ASHton 1053. Chris recalls that he was was working at Ferranti while a student and visited the archives where he met John F. Wilson, who would have been working on his history of Ferranti at the time. Wilson gave Chris several prints of from the archives including this one -presumably images of which there were multiple copies in the archives. Wilson was not an archivist for Ferranti or ICL. Chris's prints are most likely from the Ferranti collected sales prints that are now held in the ICL collection in the Science Museum archive at Wroughton, probably from the loose prints (spare copies) in ICL collection reference 8/15/15

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This is the best of set $set206, which contains images IMG0048, P4287J6-HJK22-13A and P4428J6. ID: P4428J6. 9654x7216 (+TIFF) . Copyright: unknown. Collection: Scans of prints in Hilary Kahn’s original Departmental archive. Source artefact: P4428J6, 8" x 6" photographic print, condition: Fine. Artefact notes: Courtesy Christopher Anderson. On reverse: DC50. Head For Magnetic Drive. Stamp: M.S. Services Ltd. Ashton U. Lyne. Photographers. ASHton 1053.

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Set edited 4-Dec-2023 (Jim Miles)

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