Admiralty and Ministry of Defence: Co-ordination of Valve Development Department:...

The Co-ordination of Valve Development Department was set up in 1938 by the Admiralty Director of Scientific Research. From 1946 it came under the Director of Physical Research. Its function was to co-operate with industry in developing new thermionic valves to meet the demands of the Navy, and later the other services. It negotiated and supervised development contracts with the technical assistance of committees, panels, and two laboratories it helped to establish. The Services' Valve Life Testing Establishment was set up shortly before the Second World War. Its title changed in 1952 to the Services' Valve Testing Laboratory (SVTL). In the early 1960s the importance of valves declined as solid state devices were developed and the laboratory's work was handed over to SERL. The Services' Electronics Research Laboratory (SERL) was set up in 1945. It conducted research into solid state devices, lasers and neutron generation devices. In 1976 it became a division of the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE). It closed in 1981.