Father of Cryptography

"The labyrinths of Cipher have frm Day to Day grown more difficult."

John Wallis (1616-1703) is considered to be the father of British codebreaking. A brilliant mathemetician of Emmanuel College, Oxford, Wallis preceded Newton in the development of integral and differential calculus, invented the symbol for and concept of 'infinity' ∞, came up with the germ of the binomial theorem and calculated pi by the interpolation of terms in an infinite series. He had a remarkable talent for mental arithmetic, but was also interested in language; writing a book on grammar with an appendix of the formation of speech-sounds, from which he went on to develop a system for teaching the deaf and dumb to talk.

With such an array of linguistic and numerical skills, it's perhaps not surprising to find that he was the Parliamentarian codebreaker who deciphered some of Charles I's letters, among others, and created a new cipher of his own.