Chapter Two
The 'Two Teds' - the beginning of the Decca Radar Company
Let us return to the thirties again and to a remarkable man named Ted Lewis. Ted was a stockbroker who held the controlling interest in the, then, Decca Record Company. Their factory was at New Malden in Surrey and they were producing a cheap six-inch record. By comparison with the ten inch and twelve inch of the Columbia and H. M. V. Companies their recording qualities were poor, but they were aimed at a different market. Noise at low cost was the criterion, and it worked - sales were very satisfactory. Ted, however, considered that the management was not satisfactory, he felt that this shares might soon lose their value. Not content with the situation as it was he decided to investigate.
He located the factory adjacent to the spot where the then, new Kingston by-pass started out across the unspoilt Surrey countryside. Ted was not greeted warmly however ! He discovered that the coalman had stopped supplying because his bill had not been met, Ted promptly paid it and stayed on.
The top secret radar development described had begun - unknown to Decca and indeed anyone outside Cossor and the Ministry. At the time of course Decca would have been little interested, they were only concerned with their record production.
However, when rearmament started in 1939 the Decca Company began to diversify and by 1945, when the war ended, it had an established electronics capability.
On the recording side the Decca Company was making a determined and successful assault on the quality record market and its symbol 'FFRR' (full frequency range recording) coupled with aggressive advertising and marketing, established the company as leaders in the rapidly expanding industry.
Shortly after 1945 Ted Lewis had a meeting with another remarkable man, Group Captain Ted Fennessey. Fennessey, who was the son of an East Ham schoolteacher, had paid for his own education at Oxford from money he had saved during his employment on some engineering projects in Scandinavia. Having obtained a degree in engineering he was able to secure an appointment with the Defence Ministry and he homed the group working on radar.
The 'two Teds' agreed to form a new company - the Decca Radar and Navigator Company, At the time the obvious application of Radar to exploit was Marine Navigation. Decca had already aquired the sole rights to an aircraft navigation system. This was invented by an American named Schwartz, who, having failed to interest the manufacturers in his own country, was quite happy to allow it to be exploited by the enterprising British. The year was 1947 and it is remarkable to note that the Decca Navigator System is still acknowledged as the best and most reliable aircraft guidance system yet devised.
Fennessey seemed to have a flair for organisation. He not only had the ability to make his employees respect him but he had the quality of being able to develop a good personal relationship with them. The employees admired Fennessey and the atmosphere which he undoubtedly created made them work so well for him. Output figures were excellent. He had brought in many of the team he had worked with during the war and he soon built up a sales organisation. Indeed things went so well that in no time at all he had an overflowing order book. In fact radar sets were sold and delivery promises given before the design had even reached the drawing board!
Fennessey was truly remarkable. The theory that the government provides the money first and makes life easy is only a legend. It was a credit to this amazing man that he had such confidence in the advancement of his radar development that he was able to persuade Lewis, who had shown by his earlier actions that he would not consider lightly major capital investment, to invest such large sums in an untried development. The original investment of this capital cannot be over emphasised. The projects were totally untried, unused, never before manufactured on the scale Fennessey proposed. Would they be successful? Would they sell? If the project failed Fennessey not only had the responsibility of the great financial loss but also the livlihood of the men he had persuaded to join him. Government backing would only come with success, the enormity of Fennessey's task in these initial years cannot be overstressed.
And so it was that Decca established itself as the leader in Marine Radar. Later, in the late fifties - early sixties, when other manufacturers began to catch up on them, Decca leapt ahead again with "True Motion Radar". This development (a revolution almost) resulted from a suggestion by a young ex- RAF technician who had experience of servo- mechanisms during his National Service. But back in the late forties Decca had four-fifths of the world market, they wanted to expand and to do so they had, therefore, to move into other fields.
It was decided that they should split into two main sections - comprising Marine Radar and Heavy Radar, with the original Decca Navigator constituting a separate section in its own right.
The period following was one of rapid expansion and from the original single factory several new ones opened within the next five years.
The company began to look at the market for airfield radar for civil as well as military use, having already had some experience of this work under contract to the Ministry of Defence. They had already assisted R.R.E. in developing the 'Type 801 radar - this was specifically designed for National Defence in this country and hence had no commercial potential. They had undertaken this job for the Government on a "cost plus contract" basis - a reasonable arrangement because it gave Decca the opportunity to build up a team which by the end of the contract had established itself as a group capable of advanced future development work. The market research conducted during the time the 'Type 80' was within the company showed that there was room for other new developments - such as height finding radar, a project later undertaken by Decca. The Heavy Radar Group was, established in 1954 and was the first commercial venture by Decca into large radar systems. The expansion of the group continued throughout the 1950f s and it was this expansion that led to the building of the Cowes factory in the latter half of that decade.