Gilbert Osborne Hayward (16 October 1917—9 October 2011) was a

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 ...

cryptographer Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

and inventor of the first

electronic seal An electronic seal is a piece of data attached to an electronic document or other data, which ensures data origin and integrity. The term is used in the EU Regulation No 910/2014 (eIDAS Regulation) for electronic transactions within the intern ...

security device.

Career

As a pupil at

Kilburn Grammar School Kilburn Grammar School was an English grammar school which opened in 1898 in Kilburn, north-west London. The school ceased to exist in 1967. History The school's history is detailed in a book by Richard E Brock. It was founded by the Rev. Dr. H ...

, Hayward became captivated by machines and science. He was the youngest member of the

British Astronomical Association The British Astronomical Association (BAA) was formed in 1890 as a national body to support the UK's amateur astronomers. Throughout its history, the BAA has encouraged observers to make scientifically valuable observations, often in collaborati ...

, and constructed his own

reflecting telescope A reflecting telescope (also called a reflector) is a telescope that uses a single or a combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century by Isaac Newton as an alternati ...

. He spent weeks in a junkyard to find parts with which he remade an old green Bentley and a Scott Super Squirrel motorcycle, which he then rode. Hayward's mother did not allow him go to university, as a result, Hayward left school at 16 to become an

apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

at Dollis Hill, where he collaborated with Dr Eric Speight on making the TIM speaking clock service. During the Second World War, Hayward worked at the

Post Office Research Station The Post Office Research Station was first established as a separate section of the General Post Office in 1909. In 1921, the Research Station moved to Dollis Hill, north west London, initially in ex-army huts. The main permanent buildings at ...

Dollis Hill Dollis Hill is an area in northwest London, which consists of the streets surrounding the 35 hectares (86 acres) Gladstone Park. It is served by a London Underground station, Dollis Hill, on the Jubilee line, providing good links to central Lo ...

with

Tommy Flowers Thomas Harold Flowers MBE (22 December 1905 – 28 October 1998) was an English engineer with the British General Post Office. During World War II, Flowers designed and built Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer, to help ...

, developing the Tunny and

Colossus Colossus, Colossos, or the plural Colossi or Colossuses, may refer to: Statues * Any exceptionally large statue ** List of tallest statues ** :Colossal statues * ''Colossus of Barletta'', a bronze statue of an unidentified Roman emperor * ''Col ...

decryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can deci ...

machines which were crucial to the development of later computers. By the culmination of the war, as many as 15 Tunny machines were used at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years followin ...

, supplying Allied leaders close to 300 messages from the German High Command per week. Amongst other things, Tunny gave important intelligence for D-Day." Over 13,000 messages were read in total. During World War II, Hayward served in Egypt with the Intelligence Corps, where he developed bugging equipment to listen to conversations between captured German prisoners of war. Expecting to be dropped into Turkey to sabotage telecoms systems, Hayward was instead called back to London to, and was assigned to put effort on code breaking. At Bletchley Park, Hayward was at the helm of a team of around 12 post office engineers worked to check machines and keep them functioning. At the twilight of the war, he helped dismantle the code breaking machines and reinstall two Colossus machines at

Eastcote Eastcote is a suburban area in the London Borough of Hillingdon, in northwest London. In the Middle Ages, Eastcote was one of the three areas that made up the parish of Ruislip, under the name of Ascot. The name came from its position to the e ...

North London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshire. The term ''nor ...

. After the war, Hayward worked on a secret voice encipherment system before moving to Ghana to install telecoms networks. In the 1950s, during the Malayan Emergency, Hayward joined the special of the

Royal Malaysian Police The Royal Malaysia Police (often abbreviated RMP) ( ms, Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM)), is a (primarily) uniformed national and federal police force in Malaysia. The force is a centralised organisation. Its headquarters are located at Bukit Ama ...

and was tasked with designing “special techniques devices” for use against the

Malayan National Liberation Army The Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), often mistranslated as the Malayan Races Liberation Army, was a communist guerrilla army that fought for Malayan independence from the British Empire during the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) and l ...

(MNLA), the militant arm of the

Malayan Communist Party The Malayan Communist Party (MCP), officially the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), was a Marxist–Leninist and anti-imperialist communist party which was active in British Malaya and later, the modern states of Malaysia and Singapore from ...

(MCP). By the 1980s, Hayward had patented the first electronic security seal, setting up the company Encrypta Electronics with his son Mark to manufacture the product. The devices are still used widely in the fields of distribution and transport. In the 1990s he helped researchers at

The National Museum of Computing The National Museum of Computing is a museum in the United Kingdom dedicated to collecting and restoring historic computer systems. The museum is based in rented premises at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire and opened in 2007. ...

(TNMOC) rebuild the Tunny and Colossus machines by crafting new parts from blueprints he had kept against the orders of Winston Churchill who was concerned that they could fall into Soviet hands. He was honoured with a special medal for his services to codebreaking in 1996. Hayward's son Mark told

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

that it was 'somewhat disappointing that because he worked in secret work, like all these chaps did, that they were never truly honoured by the country for the contribution they made'.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hayward, Gil British cryptographers 1917 births 2011 deaths