Benjamin deForest "Pat" Bayly (June 20, 1903 – 1994) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

electrical engineer and a professor at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

he invented a cypher machine called the

Rockex Rockex, or Telekrypton, was an offline one-time tape Vernam cipher machine known to have been used by Britain and Canada from 1943. It was developed by Canadian electrical engineer Benjamin deForest Bayly, working during the war for British Secur ...

and handled communications at the secret intelligence base

Camp X Camp X was the unofficial name of the secret Special Training School No. 103, a Second World War British paramilitary installation for training covert agents in the methods required for success in clandestine operations. It was located on the ...

. He later ran an engineering company in Ajax, Ontario, and was the first mayor of that town. A street there is named after him.

Early life and education

Bayly was born in

London, Ontario London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...

, son of Benjamin Moore Bayly and Alice Seaborn. He grew up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, where his father worked as a medical health officer.Stafford, David. ''Camp X'', Lester, Orpen & Dennys, Toronto. p. 158-160. He studied electrical engineering at the University of Toronto, and lectured there on radio communications before graduation. He graduated in 1930 with a BA in Science.

Career

After graduation Bayly was hired as an assistant professor in the University of Toronto's Department of Electrical Engineering, lecturing on radio communication, and later became a professor there. During World War II, Bayly was recruited by

William Stephenson Sir William Samuel Stephenson (23 January 1897 – 31 January 1989), born William Samuel Clouston Stanger, was a Canadian soldier, fighter pilot, businessman and spymaster who served as the senior representative of the British Security Coord ...

's British Security Coordination (BSC) to help with Stephenson's transatlantic communications from New York to Britain. He soon set up the telecommunications centre, code named Hydra, at Canada's secret intelligence installation,

, near Whitby, Ontario. Bayly (often called Pat) was assistant director, with a British army rank of lieutenant colonel. Hydra sent and received Allied radio signals from around the world. Encryption using existing equipment was very slow, so Bayly invented a much faster solution for the purpose, an offline, one-time tape cipher machine labelled the

or "Telekrypton". A later version of the machine was used by British consulates and embassies until 1973. The Government of Canada states that Hydra provided "an essential tactical and strategic component of the larger Allied radio network, secret information was transmitted securely to and from Canada, Great Britain, other Commonwealth countries and the United States". The Hydra station was valuable for both coding and decoding information in relative safety from the prying ears of German radio observers and Nazi detection. Hydra also had direct access via land lines to Ottawa,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and

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for

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

and

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

communications. The main transmitter was previously used as that of American AM station

WCAU WCAU (channel 10) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Mount Laurel, New Jer ...

's shortwave sibling W3XAU, and upon severance of W3XAU in 1941, the transmitter was refurbished and became the transmitter for Hydra at Camp X. Other radio apparatus was purchased discreetly from amateur radio enthusiasts, brought to the building in pieces and assembled on site."Hydra", in Lynn-Philip Hodgson, ''Inside - Camp X'', 2000, pages 77-84. After the war, Bayly returned to work as a professor at the University of Toronto until 1950, when he set up his own company, Bayly Engineering Works, in the newly formed town of Ajax, Ontario. Soon after, Bayly served as the first Mayor of the town. As well as having a street in the town named after him, in 2016 a statue commemorating his life was commissioned by the town." Ajax unveils statue of town’s first mayor Pat Bayly"
''Pickering News Advertiser'', April 10, 2016 By Sean Heeger Bayly later sold his company and retired in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. A book about his life, ''Benjamin de Forest (Pat) Bayly the Unknown Canadian'', has been written by Bill Parish. Bayly talks about his work during the war and his relationship with Gordon Welchman and Alan Turing in Bill Macdonald's book ''The True Intrepid''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bayly, Ben 1903 births University of Toronto alumni People from London, Ontario 20th-century Canadian inventors 1994 deaths