signals intelligence organisation. In July 1969, he was sent a draft paper by James H. Ellis, another GCHQ mathematician, about the possibility of what was termed "non-secret encryption", or what is now more commonly known as public-key cryptography, on which Wylie commented "unfortunately, I can't see anything wrong with this". He retired in 1973, and taught at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (later Hills Road Sixth Form College) in Cambridge for seven years. He was elected an honorary fellow at Trinity Hall in 1980. Wylie supervised five PhD students at Cambridge, through whom he had over 1600 "descendants" in 2021 according to the American Mathematical Society Mathematical Genealogy Project. In addition he influenced the intellectual development of generations of pupils at the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys/Hills Road Sixth Form College where he taught maths and classical Greek and where he also produced plays (such as Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard) and supervised the school chess team. He also came out of retirement temporarily to teach Mathematics at Long Road Sixth Form College. After retirement from teaching, Wylie was instrumental in the founding of the Liberal Democrats and in the Cambridge-based University of the Third Age and at the time of his death was preparing to read in the next Cambridge Greek Play, Aeschylus' Agamemnon. His eldest son, the late Keith Wylie (1945–1999), a barrister, was a croquet international and open champion of Great Britain. Shaun Wylie died on 2 October 2009, aged 96. Notes References Ralph Erskine, "Breaking Air Force and Army Enigma", pp. 47–76 in Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine eds., Action This Day, 2001. David Kahn, Seizing the Enigma, 1991. Brian Randall, "Of Men and Machines", pp. 141–149 in B. Jack Copeland editor, Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers, Oxford University Press, 2006. Shaun Wylie, "Breaking Tunny and the Birth of Colossus", pp. 317–348 in Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine, editors, Action This Day, 2001. Jack Good, "From Hut 8 to the Newmanry", pp. 204–222 in B. Jack Copeland editor, Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers, Oxford University Press, 2006. Updated and extended version of Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer Bantam Press 2001 External links Photograph of Christopher Zeeman and Shaun Wylie taken 25 February 2000. Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 21 October 2009. 1913 births 2009 deaths People from Oxford People educated at