Neil Papworth (born 1969) is a British

software architect A software architect is a software engineer responsible for high-level design choices related to overall system structure and behavior. It's software architect's responsibility to match architectural characteristics (aka non-functional requirem ...

, designer and developer. He is known as the sender of the first ever

text message Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile phones, tablet computers, smartwatches, desktop computer, des ...

(also known as

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

message) in 1992.

Personal life

Neil Papworth was born on 28 December 1969 in

Reading, Berkshire Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, England, and the county town of Berkshire. It is the United Kingdom's largest town, with a combined population of 355,596. Most of Reading built-up area, its built-up area lies within the Borough ...

, United Kingdom. Papworth obtained his HND (

Higher National Diploma Higher National Diploma (HND), part of the Higher Nationals suite of qualifications, is an academic higher education qualification in the United Kingdom and various other countries. They were introduced in England and Wales in 1920 alongside th ...

) in Computer Studies from the

University of West London The University of West London (UWL) is a public research university in the United Kingdom with campuses in Ealing, Brentford, and Reading, Berkshire. The university has roots in 1860 when the Lady Byron School was founded, later Ealing Colleg ...

. He spent his childhood in

Wokingham Wokingham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It is the main administrative centre of the wider Borough of Wokingham. At the 2021 census the parish had a population of 38,284 and the wider built-up area had a populati ...

, Berkshire, and began his professional career at Ferranti International in

Bracknell Bracknell () is a town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, the westernmost area within the Greater London Built-up Area, Greater London Urban Area and the administrative centre of the borough of Bracknell Forest. It lies to the east of Re ...

, United Kingdom. Papworth then settled in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Canada in 2000 and later moved to

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

in 2002.

Career

Neil Papworth started his career at

Ferranti Ferranti International PLC or simply Ferranti was a UK-based electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century, from 1885 until its bankruptcy in 1993. At its peak, Ferranti was a significant player in power grid system ...

International in Bracknell on aeronautical and military applications from 1988 to 1991. He designed and programmed a movable vehicle satellite antenna and implemented software for automated helicopter-landing aids. In 1991, he began working for Sema Group in Reading, Berkshire. He spent a large amount of time from 1993 onwards travelling around the world installing SMS systems. He relocated to Sema Group's

office in January 2000. He settled in

, Quebec in September 2002. He remained with Sema Group (which became Airwide Solutions) until 2011. Since then, he worked for

Tekelec Tekelec, Inc. was a Morrisville, North Carolina–based telecommunications company. It developed hardware and software for networks that are fixed, wireless, or packet-based. It provided IP services to help mobile carriers with network signalin ...

, a telecommunications company, recently bought by

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California, by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle was ...

. He worked at Oracle on 4G related technologies. In 2018, he started working at TriNimbus, a company providing Amazon Web Services consulting to customers, which was subsequently acquired by Onica in 2018, and then Onica was subsequently acquired by Rackspace in 2019.

Contribution to text messaging

In 1992, Neil Papworth was working as a developer and test engineer at Sema Group Telecoms, in a team developing a Short Message Service Centre ( SMSC) for their customer,

Vodafone UK Vodafone Limited, trading as Vodafone UK (stylised as vodafone), is a British telecommunications company, owned since May 2025 by VodafoneThree, a joint venture between Vodafone Group (51%) and Three owner CK Hutchison Holdings (49%). The ...

Newbury, Berkshire Newbury is a market town in West Berkshire, England, in the valley of the River Kennet. It is south of Oxford, north of Winchester, southeast of Swindon and west of Reading, Berkshire, Reading. It is also where West Berkshire Council is hea ...

. As part of this project, he sent the world's first

, on 3 December 1992, at the age of 22. It was sent from a computer. The message was "Merry Christmas", and was sent to Richard Jarvis, a director at

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

, who was enjoying his office Christmas party. Richard Jarvis received the message on an Orbitel 901 handset. He said in 2017 that he only sends a few texts per day and that they are typically "fairly dull." He does not use the emoji menu. Papworth gained popularity during the 10th and 20th anniversaries of the first text message, as highlighted in the press, and has been featured in several outlets such as a Super Bowl commercial, a documentary movie, a ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead g ...

'' question, and radio talk shows.

References

External links

Neil Papworth
Official website
BBC World Service documentary June 2023
15 minutes in {{DEFAULTSORT:Papworth, Neil Living people 1969 births