J. Lyons and Co.
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Joseph Lyons and Co. was a United Kingdom company which ran the Lyons Corner Houses chain of tea rooms that flourished in the 1950s. They were popular with the working classes who would typically stop by carrying shopping and with the children in tow. Service was to the table by uniformed waitresses. Many of the tea rooms were noted for their art deco style. In the post-war gloom, the Corner Houses provided a degree of escapist relaxation.The company remained under the control of the Salmon family,descended from a founding partner,until 1978 when it was acquired by Allied Breweries and became part of the resulting Allied Lyons. It fell on hard economic times in the late 1980s and was sold off, eventually being broken up with its ice cream and ice lolly products being sold to Nestlé.
Their top management saw the potential of computers for organising the distribution of cakes and other highly perishable goods, and so they were the first user of programmable digital computers in business, with the LEO I digital computer: the Lyons Electronic Office I, designed and built by John Simmons. The computer handled the company's accounts and logistics but lack of ambition and investment meant that the computer was soon overtaken by that of companies such as IBM.
J. Lyons' papers are now stored in the London Metropolitan Archives.
See also:
External links
- Designing Britain 1945 - 1975: Lyons Corner House (http://www.brighton.ac.uk/designingbritain/html/lyons.html)
- J. Lyons & Co.: An illustrated history by Peter Bird 1887-1998 (http://www.kzwp.com/lyons/)
- The papers of John Simmons (http://www.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/ead/363col.htm) relating to Lyons' computerization
- LEO Computers Society (http://www.leo-computers.org.uk/)