Jean Maurice Émile Baudot

Born Sept. 11, 1845, in Magneux, France; died Mar. 23, 1903, near Paris. French inventor in the field of telegraphy.

In 1871, Baudot was a telegraph employee in Bordeaux, and from 1872 he worked at the telegraph center in Paris. He was the first to find a practical solution for multiplex telegraphy by the sequential transmission of equal-length code groups (he patented a double sequential telegraph apparatus in 1874 and a quintuple apparatus in 1876). The first of Baudot’s apparatuses were placed in service on the Paris-Bordeaux line during 1877. In 1927, Baudot’s name was given to the unit for the speed of telegraphic signaling, the baud.