Toby Churchill

Toby Churchill DEng FRSA (born 29 June 1947) is a disabled British entrepreneur. He founded a company manufacturing communication aids for people who cannot speak. Biography He is the eldest son of Oliver Churchill and Ruth (née Briggs). He was born in Cambridge where he has lived for all of his life. He was educated at The Perse School, Cambridge, and the University of Bath where he studied engineering with French. In 1968, aged 21, Toby contracted encephalitis from swimming in a polluted river while working in France as part of his degree course. Within 24 hours he became totally paralysed and without speech. Doctors initially diagnosed his lost speech as a sunstroke but subsequently realised it was more serious. Then French President, General de Gaulle, heard that someone with the surname Churchill had been taken seriously ill and, mistakenly assuming Toby was related to Sir Winston Churchill, arranged for him to be flown back to Cambridge airport in his private jet. Toby spent six months in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge in a locked-in condition and was subsequently transferred to Stoke Mandeville Hospital for rehabilitation, where he spent a further nine months. Dissatisfied with the rudimentary communication aids then available for people who cannot speak, he designed the first Lightwriter communication aid for his own use and, after meeting other people with similar needs, started to manufacture them. He set up Toby Churchill Limited in 1973 to manufacture portable text-based communication aids.