Bloomfield James Warman (25 July 1924 – 21 November 1984) was an English electrical engineer. He was involved with the design of electronic

telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a central component of a telecommunications system in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It facilitates the establishment of communication circuits ...

s in the 1960s and 1970s. He was responsible for the concept of both the

TXE TXE (Telephone eXchange Electronic) was a family of telephone exchanges developed by the British General Post Office (GPO), designed to replace the ageing Strowger switches. When World War II ended, the UK telephone exchange suppliers supported t ...

1 and TXE3 systems, which were

reed switch The reed switch is an Electromechanics, electromechanical switch operated by an applied magnetic field. It was invented in 1922 by professor Valentin Kovalenkov at the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University#Soviet era, Petrogra ...

-based electronic exchanges. The development of these exchanges was carried out by a consortium of British telecom manufacturers in conjunction with the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in the 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific ...

. The ideas in these exchanges were later developed, by others, into the TXE4 exchanges – which, at their peak in the early 1990s, catered for more than 25% of the UK subscribers. Warman was born at Westcombe Park in South London. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he served in the

Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME ) is the maintenance arm of the British Army that maintains the equipment that the Army uses. The corps is described as the "British Army's professional engineers". History Prior t ...

. His career started off

Siemens Brothers Siemens Brothers and Company Limited was an electrical engineering design and manufacturing business in London, England. It was first established as a branchThe company started with a small factory at 12 Millbank Row, Westminster SW1, London, ne ...

at Woolwich, and he remained there when

Associated Electrical Industries Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) was a British holding company formed in 1928 through the merger of British Thomson-Houston (BTH) and Metropolitan-Vickers electrical engineering companies. In 1967 AEI was acquired by GEC, to create the UK ...

(AEI) took over the company. AEI was then taken over by the

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and Arms industry, defence electronics, communications, and engineering. It was originally founded in 1886 as G. Binswanger and Company as an e ...

, who, in 1968, closed down the development of TXE exchanges in favour of

crossbar switch In electronics and telecommunications, a crossbar switch (cross-point switch, matrix switch) is a collection of switches arranged in a Matrix (mathematics), matrix configuration. A crossbar switch has multiple input and output lines that form a ...

systems. All the AEI staff were sacked, including those on the TXE project. Warman joined American company GTE International as European technical director based in Milan, taking with him some members of his AEI team. There, Warman persisted in basing his developments on reed electronic (analogue) principles, when it had already become clear that fully electronic digital switches were now the obvious path forward. Some time later, GTE decided to close the development team in Europe. Warman received the Prince Philip Medal of The City and Guilds Institute in 1966. He held over 100 patents. He returned to the UK and set up his own company, but it was not a success, and his health failed. He died in November 1984.

References

External links

JW Patent for Magnetic switchesJW Patent for Automatic exchange systems
{{DEFAULTSORT:Warman, Jim English electrical engineers British telecommunications engineers British Army personnel of World War II 1924 births 1984 deaths