Engineer and inventor, born in Kilburn, NW London, UK. He studied structural engineering at Southall Technical College, and started a successful swimming pool company while working at home on inventions to help the physically handicapped. In 1993 he began work on a clockwork (wind-up) radio that dispensed with batteries and electric power, which could be used by isolated communities where energy resources were scarce or non-existent. His radio is powered through a mechanism whose spring is wound up by hand (a wind-up time of 25 seconds allows a play-back time of 30 minutes). Technical development was provided by the Bristol University Electronics Engineering Department, and by 1996 the radio was being commercially marketed. Since then, it has been in demand globally, notably in rural Africa and by people working in disaster areas. He later formed Trevor Baylis Brands, a company dedicated to helping inventors to develop, protect, and market their ideas.
Trevor G.
In October 1997 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire by the Princess Royal at Buckingham Palace. He now runs Trevor Baylis Brands plc, a company dedicated to helping inventors to develop and protect their ideas and to find a route to market.
Baylis has lived in Eel Pie Island for many years.
Early life
Trevor Baylis grew up in Southall, London.
A keen swimmer, he swam for Great Britain at the age of 15. 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 artiste in the Berlin Circus he set up Shotline Steel Swimming Pools, a company which supplies modular swimming pools to schools in the UK.
Invention
Baylis's work as a stunt man made him feel kinship with disabled people through friends whose injuries had ended their performing careers.
In 1989 he saw a TV programme about the spread of AIDS in Africa and how a way to halt the spread of the disease would be by education and information using radio broadcasts.
The turning point came when his prototype was featured on the BBC TV programme Tomorrow's World. With money from investors he formed a company Freeplay and in 1996 the Freeplay radio was awarded the BBC Design Award for Best Product and Best Design. 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.
1997 saw the production in South Africa of the new generation Freeplay radio, a smaller lighter model designed for the Western consumer market with a running time of up to an hour on twenty seconds of winding.
Numerous tours, interviews and television appearances have followed, and Baylis has been awarded many honours including the OBE in 1997, and eleven honorary degrees from UK universities (1998 to 2005).
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.
Quotes
"The key to success is to risk thinking unconventional thoughts. As long as you've got slightly more perception that the average wrapped loaf, you could invent something"
"A good idea turns every cog in your mind, making you scared of bed in case the whole machine grinds to a halt."
"I’d work eighteen-hour stretches and fall asleep in my clothes.
"But there is only one person I blame for getting shafted, and that’s myself.
"As they say, art is pleasure, invention is treasure, and this nation has got to recognise that.
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