Frederick G. Creed

Creed was born in Mill Village, Nova Scotia, and at the age of 15 began his working life as a check boy for Western Union in Canso, where he taught himself cable and landline telegraphy.

Working in the company’s office in Iquique, Chile, he became tired of using hand-operated Morse keys and Wheatstone tape punches, and came up with the idea of a typewriter-style machine that would allow the operator to punch Morse code signals onto paper tape simply by pressing the appropriate character key.

Using an old typewriter bought from the Sauchiehall Street market, he created his first keyboard perforator, which used compressed air to punch the holes.

Although told by Lord Kelvin that "there is no future in that idea", Creed managed to secure an order for 12 machines from the British General Post Office in 1902.

Two years later the Glasgow Herald adopted the Creed system, claiming that it was three times faster than the rival Morse apparatus.

In 1913, the first experiments were made in high-speed telegraphy by radio transmission between the Croydon factory and Creed's home about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) away.

This machine printed received messages directly onto gummed paper tape at a rate of 65 words per minute and was the first combined start-stop transmitter-receiver teleprinter from Creed to enter mass production.

During World War II, while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, Gavin Creed published For Freedom (1942).