TRIBUTES have been paid to a trailblazing engineer whose inventions influenced the modern world.

Professor G B B Chaplin, known as Barrie, died aged 96.

Prof Chaplin, who served in the RAF during the Second World War, was the founding father of modern electronics and spent four decades pioneering important technological breakthroughs.

It included the invention of the world’s first transistorised digital computer and the invention and development of active noise and vibration cancellation technologies.

He worked alongside Alan Turing at Manchester University while completing his BSc, MSc and PhD before working for leading electronics firm Plessey.

In 1966, he moved back into academia to establish the Department of Electrical Engineering Science at Essex University.

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Prof Chaplin, who lived in Colchester, devised the four original undergraduate electronic engineering degree courses at the university.

He also founded the UK’s first university-based industrial electronics engineering development centre, known as the Essex Electronics Centre, which supported small local companies.

Prof Chaplin’s son, Andrew, said: “Dad’s creativity helped revolutionise much of the technology we now take for granted.

“His focus was always on progressing his scientific research, coming up with the next concept and making it happen. It was his work in the research laboratory that was his great love.

“His inventiveness continued unabated until he retired in 1989, enabling him to focus more on his passion for sailing around the East Anglian coast.”

Vice-Chancellor Prof Anthony Forster said: “The scope and impact of Prof Chaplin’s work is incredible. His energy, inventiveness and vision meant he played an important part in creating the technology which now underpins our modern world.

“He has left a lasting legacy at Essex and in the wider world through his research, his inventions and his commitment to developing the next generation of electronic engineers.”

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