Ladislav Lax

Ladislav was born in Feb 1906 in Nitra, Hungary (now Slovakia)and studied Electrical Engineering at Brno University.

In early 1937 he worked in the Empo Radio factory in Prague. After the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia he was fired by the company in March 1939 for being Jewish.

During his attempt to escape Czechoslovakia, he was captured by the Gestapo on the Polish border in April 1939 and was tortured. The Gestapo then threw him out of the country in June 1939.

After reaching Poland he managed to get a boat to England and arrived in August 1939. In England he worked for the Forestry Commission in Somerset, as a labourer, between September 1940 until January 1941 when, we believe, he moved to Cambridge to start work for Pye.

He continued at Pye until his death in July 1967.

During the war he worked on Pye military radio. After that, he is credited with the transformerless technology in the Pye B18T. This was the first volume production TV in the world not to need a mains transformer.

He led the team who developed the first British transistor radio (the Pam 710) in 1956.