London On-line Local Authorities
London On-line Local Authorities
Thank you to the many of the former staff who have provided physical documents, scans of documents, photographs or recollections.
February 2022 - March 2025
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John Aldridge (1973-1980) Phil Brown (<=1970-2006) Keith Callaghan (1970-83 and previously at LBMSU from 1967) Andy Chase ( 1986-1998) Chris Dee (1974-80) Kevin Dudley (1970-1973) Jim Fothergill (1970-1974; initially 1968 at LBMSU) Paul Golding (1988-1995) Philip Gorin (deceased) Martin Jackson (1970-2006 and previously at LBMSU from 1968) Richard (Dick) Jones (1972-1974) Jeremy Leighton (1980-93) Mary Mills (wife of Alan Mills (deceased)) Richard Pantlin (1984-1990) Peter Rawlinson (1986-88) Lee Reynolds (1979-1980) Heather Rogers (1978-1981) Peter Sellars (1973-1979) Kevin Shimmin (1975-2001) Ray Smith (1970-78 and previously at LBJCC from 1966 and then LBMSU from 1968) Tony Upton (1973-1978.) Murali Vidhyadharan (1989-2006 and previously at Tower Hamlets from 1985) Mark Winter (1987-1995) David Woodhams (1979-1981)
Links are to their Linkedin pages. |
Thank you to the following who have assisted.
| January 2021 - October 2025 |
Vince Bodsworth, Webmaster, LEO Computer Society Peter Byford, Chair, LEO Computer Society Max Campbell, Reference Archivist, IBM Archives, USA Peter Coghlan, Volunteer Curator, IBM Hursley Museum Kelly Harris, Genealogist Penny Horwood, Author, The Channel Company Iasmina Martiniuc, Social Sciences Reference Team, The British Library Lisa McGerty, Chief Executive Officer, The Centre for Computing History Adrian Page-Mitchell, Collections Manager, The Centre for Computing History Matthew Taylor, Digital Archivist, Open University Tony Watts, Derek Schartau's Executor |
There is very little information on the web about LOLA and its predecessors. Here are a few references that were correct as of January 2024.
| Source | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
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3 photos of Hackney's LEO III computer Hackney Archives [Search for "The Computer Section, Southgate Road"] |
1967 | Almost certainly the LEO III run by the London Boroughs Management Services Unit (LBMSU) on behalf of the North East London Computer Scheme (NELCS) for the London boroughs of Hackney, Haringey and Tower Hamlets. LOLA acquired this LEO and many of LBMSU's staff. The LEO continued to be run at Southgate Road centre. Eventually the applications were re-written on LOLA's IBM mainframe with some being run initially on the IBM using a LEO emulator. |
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L.O.L.A. case study Digital Archive, Open University. ISBN: 0335140041 Click on "Show more" on the OU webpage (bottom left) to see a short synopsis. |
9th March 1980 | An OU case study to support course M352, Computer based information systems.
Discusses LOLA's technical database design and shows the system in use in the Rates department.
LOLA and Hillingdon Council staff contributed.
You can read a detailed sysnopsis of the LOLA Case Study by Alan Cooper here. |
| LOLA Retains Union Rights [re Transfer to CFM], Local Government Chronicle | 19 March 1993 | CFM, which bought LOLA, agreed that the NALGO union recognition would be maintained when LOLA is privatised. Normally CFM did not recognise unions. In the face of a High Court action, bought by NALGO, CFM agreed to apply TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1991) even though the Councils had argued that TUPE did not apply. |
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John Humphries House, Guide to... Rob Powell, Greenwich.co.uk |
June 29, 2011 | Mainly about John Henry Humphries, Treasurer of the Borough of Greenwich and his pioneering application of electronic computers to municipal accountancy. Photo of LEO III/4. |
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John Humpheries House and LEO Computer Centre Harry Pearman, Greenwich Industrial History |
6 March 2018 | Related to LOLA's predecessor, the Joint Committee of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Greenwich, Woolwich, Deptford, Southwark, Bermondsey and Camberwell. Many of LOLA's applications were originally developed for the LEO. Article includes some history of J. Lyons & Co. developing the LEO computer. Harry Pearman was the Rates Development Team Leader at LOLA |
| Municipal Greenwich, Part II I Municipal Dreams, 2018-03-06 | 6 March 2018 | Comment from Mary Mills about John Humpheries House and that "from the early 1960s a group of visionary young men saw that all local government services could be run on computers". She then goes on to explain how they first used a LEO computer and then progressed to creating LOLA. Mary was the wife of Alan Mills, a much liked applications developer at LOLA. |
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Greenwich Industrial History, Note about Harry Pearman and LOLA. See sub-heading We have a copy of ‘Subterranea’ the Journal of Subterranea Britannica |
20 May 2019 | Refers to a previous obituary about Harry Pearman and that he was an IT specialist. Author [maybe Mary Mills] expands on this, explaining Harry worked for LOLA, "an extremely interesting and very unusual local government body" established in the early 1960s with a LEO computer [looks like the author is refering to LOLA's predecessor LBMSU. Harry and other LBMSU staff transferred to LOLA, Harry becoming Head of Applications Development.] |
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London Borough of Haringey long term computer project: report on the initial study World Cat At WorldCat search for "Haringey long term computer project" |
as at January 2021 | Catalogue listing for world-wide repositories holding a copy of the Haringey report. There are 14 library copies in all of the final 1969 report, with 7 in the UK. 3 editions listed but probably only 2 editions as 1 copy is listed as author H J Dive whereas the rest are LBMSU. The other edition is a short first report of 1968. |
If you have any LOLA artefacts or know of any more references then please contact Alan Cooper at network@ + this page's domain name or via the Contact page. Alan Cooper was at LOLA from 1970 to 1975.