Frank Land obituary

Business computer pioneer and the UK’s first professor of information systems

November 2026 will mark the 75th anniversary of the world’s first commercial job run on a stored program computer. On 29 November 1951, the Bakery Valuations job calculated the costs, earnings and margins of the baked goods produced by J Lyons & Co, which was then the UK’s largest catering firm and the first business in the world to use a computer to support its operations.

Lyons recruited a programming team to work on the Lyons Electronic Office – Leo – and in 1953 Frank Land was among the new cohort. His pioneering role led both to his founding of the academic study of information systems and to a passionate commitment to preserving Leo’s heritage.