Trevor Baylis

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For the cricketer, see Trevor Bayliss.
Trevor Baylis
CBE
TrevorBaylis Jan2006.jpg
Baylis in 2006
Born Trevor Graham Baylis
(1937-05-13)13 May 1937
Kilburn, London, England
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Eel Pie Island, London, England
Nationality British
Known for Wind-up radio
Notable awards <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Website
www.trevorbaylisbrands.com

Trevor Graham Baylis CBE (13 May 1937 – 5 March 2018) was an English inventor best known for the wind-up radio. The radio, instead of relying on batteries or external electrical source, is powered by the user winding a crank. This stores energy in a spring which then drives an electrical generator. Baylis invented it in response to the need to communicate information about AIDS to the people of Africa.[1] He ran a company in his name dedicated to helping inventors to develop and protect their ideas and to find a route to market.[2]

Early life and education

Trevor Baylis was born on 13 May 1937 to Cecil Archibald Walter Baylis and Gladys Jane Brown[3] in Kilburn, London.[2][4] He grew up in Southall, Middlesex, and attended North Primary School and Dormers Wells Secondary Modern School.[3]

Career

His first job was in a Soil Mechanics Laboratory in Southall[5] where a day-release arrangement enabled him to study mechanical and structural engineering at a local technical college.[6]

A keen swimmer, he swam for Great Britain at the age of 15;[4] he narrowly failed to qualify for the 1956 Summer Olympics.[6][7] In 1959, Baylis started his National Service as a physical-training instructor with the Royal Sussex Regiment[5] and swam for the Army and Imperial Services during this time. When he left the army he took a job with Purley Pools,[5] the company which made the first free-standing swimming pools. Initially he worked in a sales role,[6] but later switched to research and development.[8]

His swimming skills enabled him to demonstrate the pools and drew the crowds at shows, and this led to forming his own aquatic-display company as professional swimmer, stunt performer and entertainer, performing high dives into a glass-sided tank. With money earned from performing as an underwater-escape artist in the Berlin Circus, he set up Shotline Steel Swimming Pools, a company which supplies swimming pools to schools.[5][9]

Invention

Baylis's work as a stunt man exposed him to the needs of disabled people, through colleagues whose injuries had ended their performing careers. By 1985, this involvement had led him to invent and develop a range of products for the disabled called Orange Aids.[10][8]

In the late 1980s or early 1990s,[10][11][12] Baylis saw a television programme about the spread of AIDS in Africa and realised that a way to halt the spread of the disease would be to educate and disseminate information by radio.[11][13] Within 30 minutes, he had assembled the first prototype of his most well-known invention, the wind-up radio.[11] The original prototype included a small transistor radio, an electric motor from a toy car, and the clockwork mechanism from a music box.[14] Baylis filed his first patent in 1992.[15]

While the prototype worked well, Baylis struggled to find a production partner. The turning point came in 1994 when his prototype was featured the BBC TV programme Tomorrow's World and he was interviewed on the BBC World Service, which resulted in an investor coming forward to back the product.[11] With money from investors he formed a company called Freeplay Energy; in 1996, the Freeplay radio was given the BBC Design Awards for Best Product and Best Design.[11] In the same year Baylis met Queen Elizabeth II and Nelson Mandela at a state banquet, and also travelled to Africa with the Dutch Television Service to produce a documentary about his life. He was awarded the 1996 World Vision Award for Development Initiative that year.[16]

The year 1997 saw the production in South Africa of the new generation Freeplay radio, a smaller and cheaper model designed for the Western consumer market which uses rechargeable cells with a generic crank generator.[17]

In 2001, Baylis completed a 100-mile walk across the Namib Desert, demonstrating his electric shoes and raising money for the Mines Advisory Group.[6] The "electric shoes", developed in collaboration with the UK's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, use piezoelectric contacts in the heels to charge a small battery that can be used to operate a radio transceiver or cellular telephone.[18][19]

Following his own experience of the difficulties faced by inventors, Baylis set up the Trevor Baylis Foundation to "promote the activity of Invention by encouraging and supporting Inventors and Engineers". This led to the formation of the company Trevor Baylis Brands PLC which provides inventors with professional partnership and services to enable them to establish the originality of their ideas, to patent or otherwise protect them, and to get their products to market. Their primary goal is to secure licence agreements for inventors, but they also consider starting up new companies around good ideas. The company is based in Richmond, London.[20][21]

Personal life

For many years, Baylis lived on Eel Pie Island on the river Thames.[22] He regularly attended jazz performances at the Eel Pie Island Hotel.[23] He was single and was well known for being a pipe-smoker.[24] In March 2010, Baylis stated that he was sexually abused at age 5 by a Church of England curate.[25] This was also covered in his 1999 autobiography, Clock This. He died on 5 March 2018, at the age of 80, having been debilitated by Crohn's disease.[26]

Awards and honours

Baylis was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours[5] and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to intellectual property.[27][28] In 1999, Baylis received the Pipe Smoker of the Year award from the British Pipesmokers' Council, which honoured famous pipesmokers.[29] Baylis was awarded 11 honorary degrees from UK universities.[8] He received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2003.[30] He was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Leeds Metropolitan University in June 2005.[31]

References

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External links

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  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (subscription required)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "My Secret Life: Trevor Baylis, inventor", The Independent, magazine section p7, 3 November 2008
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ "My Secret Life", The Independent, ibid. Saying he had failed to qualify by 0.1 sections, he listed his as his "biggest regret"
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ IP Review Online Archived 28 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Interview with Trevor Baylis, January 2008
  16. ↑ Biography of Trevor Baylis, World Vision Award for Development Initiative, World Vision website, January 2006
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Baylis wrote the foreword for Kathleen Houston's You Want to Do What?!: 80 Alternative Career Options ISBN 0-85660-891-2
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 61092. p. . 31 December 2014.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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