Inventor of wind-up radio, Trevor Baylis, dies aged 80
Trevor Baylis, who invented the wind-up radio which gave millions access to life-saving information has died.
Baylis lived in Twickenham and received a CBE in 2014 for his services to intellectual property sadly died of natural causes on Monday.
Known as one of Britain’s greatest inventors, was best known for his BayGen clockwork radio, which he began work on in 1991 being inspired by a documentary on the importance of educational radio programmes in preventing the spread of HIV.
A prototype for the radio ran for 14 minutes and Baylis took to Tomorrow’s World on BBC One in order to attract investors which led to it being manufactured in South Africa.
Baylis recently urged for more protection for inventors as he suffered from financial difficulty after he received little of the profit for his great invention.
Born in May 1937 in Kilburn, north-west London, Baylis’s first job was in a soil mechanics laboratory in Southall where a day-release arrangement enabled him to study mechanical and structural engineering at a technical college.
His other inventions include electric shoes which he used to walk 100 miles across the Namib Desert to raise money for the Mines Advisory Group charity.
