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SOE Audiotel Lee Tracey →
Inventor and MI6 operative
Charles Barton Bovill (18 February 1911 - 9 May 2001) was a British electronics
engineer and inventor. During WWII, he worked for the Royal Air Force
(RAF) and for the Special Operations Executive (SOE),
where he helped with the development of devices like
Rebecca, Eureka and
S-Phone. For the SOE he also developed
a range of gadgets that were used by agents who were parachuted over
occupied Europe. After the war he worked for Decca and for the British
secret intelligence service MI6. Bovill is also the inventor of the
non-linear junction detector (NLJD).
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Bovill invented the NLJD whilst working with the RAF
and SOE during the war. He used the non-linear properties of
corroded metals to test the integrity of airplane wings, whithout
the need to take them apart. After the war, he successfully applied
his invention for detecting transistors and thus also
covert listening devices (bugs),
even when they were not actively transmitting.
in 1972, Bovill left MI6 for a career in
Technical Surveillance and Counter-Measures (TSCM).
He joined Allen International Ltd. and introduced the commercial version
of the NLJD: The Broom.
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Allen International, of which Bovill was the director,
was founded by lifetime friend Lee Tracey,
which whom he had worked in the RAF and at MI6. It had an
outlet above a bedding shop in Westminster (London, UK), where
they sold all kinds of spy gadgets. It earned him the nickname
'Q of Westminster'.
The company also marketed Tracey's invention of
the Scanlock bug tracer.
Another invention of Bovill was the Photic Drive, a device that could
be used for crowd-control. It produced a combination of sub-sonic waves
and strobe light, and caused acute discomfort, disorientation
and sometimes epilepsy. In his home laboratory in West Byfleet, he
tried it on his wife.
On 1 October 1973, Bovill nearly lost his live when the IRA,
afraid that this device would be used against them,
wanted to place a bomb in his Westminster office. Fortunately,
the person placing the bomb was spotted on camera by Bovill's
colleagues, and eventually the bomb didn't go off.
The Photic Drive was later marketed in the US, where it was
successfully used against prison riots.
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Related items on this website
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Charles Barton Bovill was born 18 February 1911 at Battersea, south
London (UK), the second son of Ethel and Charles H. Bovill — a successful
playwright who write the lyrics for five musicals [3].
He grew up at The Knowle, a 17th century cottage in Barcombe (Sussex, UK).
During the First World War (WWI), which lasted from 28 July 1914 to
11 November 1918, his father served as a Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards,
but was killed in early 1918 on the Western Front [9].
In September 1918, shortly before the end of the war, his mother - Ethel – moved
with her two sons – Edward and Charles – to Bedford, where they lived at
32 Clapham Road. Edward was sent to Bedford Preperatory School and Charles
followed a year later.
In 1923 Charles interrupted his education for one
full year, when he stayed with an aunt in France.
In the mid 1920s, he picked up a study Radio at the University of
Grenoble (France). After returning to the UK in 1933, he was given a job
at His Master's Voice (HMV) in London, whilst taking evening classes
at the London Polytechnic.
In 1935 he left HMV to join the Air Ministry, where he stayed for
three years.
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On 3 January 1938, aged 26, he took a job at Marconi (UK).
In 1 September 1939, World War II (WWII) broke out and Marconi got involved
the wartime production of radio and radar equipment, much of which was tested
by Bovill. In early 1940, Marconi gave him on loan to the
Bomber and Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force (RAF), where he did
further work on radio and radar.
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Whilst at the RAF, Bovill got noticed by the
Special Operations Executive (SOE), who recruted him
in October 1941 for the Inter-Service Research Bureau (ISRB) —
a cover name for the technical research and development section of the SOE.
This brought him in contact
with Major Hobday and Captain Bert Land, for whom he tested and installed
the now famous S-Phone
and the Eureka/Rebecca navigation systems,
all of which were used by resistance networks across Europe.
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Whilst working with radar during his time with the SOE in France,
Bovill noticed that when they pinged a remote object, some German battleships
not only returned a reflection of the incident wave, but also the second
harmonic of that signal. After a closer examination he discovered that
this was caused by corrosion of the rivets in the armour of the enemy battleships.
On return to the UK in early 1942, Bovill developed the idea
to use this phenomenon to find corroded parts on airplanes.
The Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft that were used by the RAF at the time,
had wings with metal support struts that were subject to stress and G-force.
Since these airplanes were on standby all the time in the wet British climate,
the concern was that the metal support struts might corrode and weaken the
wing. When pinging an RF signal into the wing, a strong returned second harmonic
of the incident wave, indicated significant corrosion.
It allowed the RAF to test the integrity of the wings without taking them apart.
An thus the first non-linear junction detector (NLJD) was born.
On 1 April 1942, Bovill was promoted to flight lieutenant with the
Technical, Signals and Radar Branch of the
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve [10].
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Towards the end of the war, Bovill briefly returned to the ISRB,
which lasted until the end of the hostilities in Europe in May 1945.
On 8 May 1945, the last day of the war in Europe, he became a civilian
again and was sent back to Marconi where he resumed his initial job.
However, after having been involved in exiting and dangerous work with
the RAF and the SOE for five years, Bovill had great difficulty
getting used again to the slow-pace bureaucracy at Marconi [3].
After a few months, he left Marconi to accept a job in navigation
technology with Decca, where he worked with great satisfaction for
the next 12+ years.
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Around 1960, Bovill started working for the British intelligence service
MI6, also known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).
The exact date is not known, nor do we know who recruted him.
Bovill never publicly spoke about his days at MI6, and in interviews
he always carefully avoided the subject.
It seems likely though, that he was recruted by his 15 year younger
wartime friend Lee Tracey, with whom he had served
in the RAF during the latter part of the war.
Tracey had joined MI6 back in 1947, when he finished his service
career with the RAF. With 13 years in British intelligence, he was
already a veteran when the two men were reunited. In his early days
at MI6, he had worked undercover as a 'journalist' with several
newspapers, including the Derbyshire Evening Telegraph.
In the mid-1950s he got involved with
Technical Surveillance and Counter-Measures (TSCM) and soon
became an expert in the development of
covert listening devices (bugs).
The arrival of the transistor enabled Tracey develop
increasingly smaller bugs.
When Bovill joined MI6 in 1960, he also became a TSCM expert.
With his colleague Tracey,
he worked on the development of bugs,
but also on methods for detecting and locating such bugs.
In 1962, this led to Tracey's invention of the
staircase receiver,
also known as an harmonic receiver, which could scan the frequency
spectrum for bugs – well into the GHz-range – in less than a second.
The staircase receiver later became known as the
Scanlock.
The Scanlock had only one problem: it could only find a bug when
it was actively transmitting. It could not find a bug that had been
deactived remotely when the adversary suspected a 'bug sweep'.
Such remote controlled bugs were amoung the favourites of the US
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
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At this point, Bovill recalled the method he had developed
during WWII for finding corrosion on airplanes, and wondered
whether it could also be used for detecting the presence of transistors.
After all, transistors were semiconductors, just like corroded metals,
and therefore non-linear devices. His assumption turned out to be correct.
He subsequently perfected his wartime invention and soon they had a device for
detecting bugs that were not active: the first NLJD bugfinder.
It is unknown whether he gave his invention a name, but it would later
become known as Broom.
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During his time at MI6, Bovill also developed the Photic Drive;
a highly effective device that could be used for crowd-control.
It produced a combination of sub-sonic audio waves and strobe light,
and caused acute discomfort, disorientation and in some cases
even epileptic seizure. Although MI6 didn't like the invention,
Bovill later turned it into a commercial product, and sold it in the US.
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In 1970, Lee Tracey left MI6 to persue a personal
career in the commercial TSCM business, whilst still occasionally
working for MI6.
In 1972 he was joined by Bovill, who became director of their newly
founded company Allen International Ltd. The company had an
outlet above a bedding shop in Westminster (London) and specialised in
miniature microphones,
bugs and other spy gear. [4].
For several years, Allen International supplied the Q-type
gadgets for people in the TSCM-trade but also for some of the
famous James Bond movies.
Shortly after Bovill joined the company, in 1972, they introduced
the Broom, the first commercial
version of the NLJD bugfinder he had developed at MI6 in the
early 1960s, and which was based on his wartime invention to find
corrosion on airplanes (another kind of a non-linear device).
It was an instant hit and soon became the defacto standard amoung the
small circle of specialised TSCM firms. Since Bovill had not filed
for a patent for his invention, it was soon copied by others, who
improved it and successfully filed patents for those improvements.
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Bovill also introduced the commercial version of his Photic Drive;
the device he had developed at MI6 for crowd control.
Rumour has it that in his home laboratory in West Byfleet,
he tested the Photic Drive on his wife Pamela.
Although the British Government never used the Photoc Drive,
the Irish Republican Army (IRA) [8] was afraid that it would be
used against them in Northern Ireland.
To prevent this, they planned a bomb attack on Bovill's shop at
Westminster on 1 October 1973.
Luckily, Bovill's colleagues spotted the bomber on CCTV cameras,
so that the building could be evacuated in time.
Eventually, the bomb didn't go off.
The Photic Drive was later marketed in the US, where it was
successfully used against prison riots.
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When Allen International's shop was closed down in 1974, the
activities and product portfolio were taken over one of
Tracey's other firms:
Security Research Ltd. in Guildford (UK).
Bovill did not become director of the new company, nor did he
become an employee, but he remained closely involved as a
consultant for the next 16+ years.
During this time, he developed several new products (e.g. Larsen),
all of which were marketed by Security Research Ltd.
As an independent consultant, Bovill also worked as an instructor for
the International Bodyguard Association (IBA), where he trained
security recruits and future TSCM experts on the use of his
Larsen and Broom bugfinders.
Bovill and his 'toys' are mentioned in the IBA traning manual [11]:
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If the transmitter isn't transmitting, you need a device called the
Broom or Non Linear Junction Detector (NLJD). The Broom was developed
by ECS instructor Charles Bovill. It detects electronic components whether
or not they are transmitting at the time. The drawback is that it will
also detect TV sets, electronic alarm clocks, microwave ovens and
anything else that contains electronic components. The Broom
must be used in conjunction with the Larsen.
In 1989, Security Research Ltd. was taken over by
Audiotel Ltd., yet another company that
had been founded by Lee Tracey back in 1978
and that also marketed Tracey famous staircase receiver, which had
meanwhile become known as Scanlock.
In fact, the name Scanlock had become so
famous in the TSCM business, that Audiotel
used it as a trademark on all of its products.
At an earlier stage, Tracey had sold
Audiotel to Lansing Bagnall, but after a conflict
in 1987 he had left.
Lansing Bagnall had meanswhile sold Audiotel
to entrepeneur Andrew Martin, who wanted to move the company forward.
By acquiring Security Research Ltd., Audiotel
got access to Bovill's Broom technology.
In 1990 it was re-released as the
Scanlock Broom ECM,
after which Bovill felt it was time to take a step back.
In late 1990, he finally retired at the age of 79.
In 1999, Bovill appeared in the fascinating Channel 4 documentary
The Walls Have Ears [2] in which he demonstrated the original
Broom in the shed behind his home.
The image at the top of this page was taken from that Channel 4 documentary [2].
Just two years later, on 9 May 2001, Charles Bovill passed away at the age of 90.
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In some literature, the Russians are credited for inventing the
Non-Linear Junction Detector (NLJD), as they came up with an equivalent
device around the same time as Charles Bovill did in 1972. However,
as Bovill already used the NLJD during WWII to find corroded parts on
airplaines, we assume that he is the original inventor.
It is quite possible though, that the Russians invented it completely
independently, or that they had information about Bovill's secret wartime work.
➤ More about the NLJD
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Below is a fascinating documentary called The Walls Have Ears,
aired in 1999 by Channel 4 in the UK. It goes into great detail about
bugs and bug-finding equipment, and contains interviews with TSCM inventors
Charles Bovill, Lee Tracey,
Glenn Whidden and other names of the 1960-1980s.
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Below is a timeline with the most significant events in Charles Bovill's
life, based on several open sources [1][2][3], complemented by interviews with his
lifetime friend and colleague Lee Tracey, and correspondence
with two of his former co-workers: Dean La-Vey [6] and Ian [7].
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- The Telegraph, Charles Bovill, Obituary
9 May 2001.
- Channel 4, The Walls Have Ears
Fascinating Channel 4 documentary about The Spying Game - The Walls have Ears.
1999. Via YouTube. Interviews Glenn Whidden, Lee Tracey, Charles Bovill and others.
- Bernard O'Connor, Charles Bovill, WW2 Radio expert
e-Book. 44 pages. Retreived May 2013.
- Paul Reuvers and Marc Simons, Interview with Lee Tracey
Crypto Museum. 23 May 2013.
- The Legend of Q
Visited 21 march 2025.
- Dean La-Vey, TSCM Legends
Intersec, January 2022. pp. 36-38.
Personal correspondence, April 2025.
- Ian
, Personal correspondence
22 February 2025.
- Wikipedia, Irish Republican Army
Visited 30 April 2025.
- Gordon Williams, British Theatre in the Great War
ISBN 978-0-8264-5635-9. 2003. p. 22.
- Supplement to the London Gazette
20 October 1942, p. 4516.
- The Director General's Bodyguard Course
Internatonal Bodyguard Association (IBA).
IBA, HQ. Germany, 1982-1995. p. 13.
- Round the World of Wireless, New Type Aerial
Practical Wireless, December 1953, p. 729.
- Charles Bovill, Printed Circuit Television Set
Wireless World, August 1954, pp. 363–366.
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Thursday 17 September 2015. Last changed: Friday, 02 May 2025 - 15:43 CET.
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![Charles Bovill in the Channel 4 documentary 'The Walls Have Ears' [2]](img/bovill_1b.jpg)
