The clockmaker’s code: Edward Bates and his secret language
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At first glance, Edward Bates was an ordinary man. A clockmaker in the Sussex village of Cuckfield in the early 19th century, his days would have been filled with the steady rhythm of gears, springs and pendulums. Customers came and went from his shop at the bottom of the High Street with broken watches, commissions and small talk. Nothing about his profession suggested intrigue.
And yet, hidden within his records, Bates was quietly practising something far more unusual: he was writing some of his diary entries in code.
A deliberate, structured cipher - one that rendered the content completely unintelligible to the casual reader. In doing so, Bates joined a long tradition of cryptography more often associated with spies, generals and kings rather than with a village craftsmen.
a world already fluent in secrecy
By Bates’s lifetime, encryption was nothing new. Across Europe, coded writing was an essential tool of diplomacy, war and political survival. Messages could decide alliances, expose betrayals or shift the balance of power.
Napoleon’s administration used the formidable Great Paris Cipher, a system of around 1,400 numerical codes mixed with deceptive ‘dummy’ entries designed to mislead interceptors. Earlier still, figures like John Dee, advisor to Elizabeth I, had relied on coded correspondence, while Thomas Jefferson devised his own mechanical cipher device.
Even the tragic fate of Mary, Queen of Scots, had hinged on encryption. Her coded letters were painstakingly deciphered by Thomas Phelippes in the 1580s, revealing evidence of treason that led to her execution.
By the early 1800s, the real challenge was not inventing ciphers, but breaking them. Codebreakers exploited predictable phrases - known as ‘cribs’ - and patterns in language, a technique dating back to the Arab scholar Al-Kindi in the ninth century. No cipher was entirely safe; its strength depended on how well its secrets were kept.
What Bates chose to hide
What makes Bates remarkable is not just that he used a cipher, but what he chose to protect.
His encoded notes covered a surprisingly wide range of subjects. Some were practical and commercial: the sale of a valuable watch, the identity of a timber merchant, or the discovery of a valuable banknote. Others suggest a concern for customer privacy, with names deliberately obscured.
More intriguingly, Bates encrypted what appear to be trade secrets - recipes for black, brown and transparent varnishes, as well as methods for removing grease. These were the kinds of details that could give a craftsman a competitive edge.
There were also deeply personal entries. He recorded wages paid to apprentices and even the birthday of a young woman connected to a local harness maker. These details hint at a man who understood that sensitive information was not limited to grand political matters. In his world, privacy, reputation and business advantage were just as valuable.
a simple cipher, cleverly used
When modern tools are applied to Bates’s encoded text, the solution comes quickly. His system appears to have been a substitution cipher in which only a portion of the alphabet - just 13 characters - were switched around, leaving the rest unchanged.
By modern standards, this is easily broken. With enough text, even a 19th century analyst could have deciphered it using patience and frequency analysis.
But Bates was not trying to outwit a state intelligence service. He was protecting his notes from casual inspection - from customers, competitors or curious acquaintances. His cipher was perfectly judged: simple enough to use from day to day, but obscure enough to deter prying eyes.
The key to his system, however, would have been everything. Without it, the writing appeared meaningless. With it, every hidden detail could be revealed at once. It is tempting to imagine Bates keeping this key close at hand - perhaps tucked into a personal drawer, or maybe concealed in his fob watch, the very object that defined his trade.
influence from a wider world?
Cuckfield was not isolated from the influences of this turbulent time. In the early 1800s it was shaped by 20 years of ongoing Napoleonic Wars. Military men, travellers and officials would have passed through towns and villages in the South carrying stories - and importantly their knowledge with them.
Military officers regularly visited his shop when Bates had the role of Headborough for the village to update him on the billeting for their soldiers in the local inns and yo arranged transport of their baggage on locally-based famers’ wagons.
Perhaps in a conversation, Bates discussed defending his business from an invading French army, and an officer might have mentioned the use of ciphers in the field, and demonstrated how effective it was. From there, Bates could have adapted the principle for his own use. He invented a unique but simple cipher key that he could use in his daily his everyday work and life.
Who would have realised that:
Eht gutyot optco wnll ni y lneelt enmt buroh ne sff whti is oeyni su ypptyuyict sf gutyot wnll bt ltfe
mundanely meant:
The grease specs will in a little time brush it off when no stain or appearance of grease will be left
Whether inspired by such encounters or developed independently, his cipher reflects an awareness that information had value - and that value needed protection.
a clockmaker ahead of his time
What survives of Bates’s coded writing is more than a curiosity. It is evidence of a mindset that feels strikingly modern. Long before the age of digital security, he understood the importance of safeguarding data, limiting access and keeping critical ‘keys’ secure.
Today, we rely on passwords, passkeys and encryption software to protect our information. Bates relied on ink, paper and a private cipher. The principle, however, is unchanged.
In the steady tick of his clocks, Bates measured time. In the careful construction of his codes, he quietly anticipated a future in which information itself would become one of the most valuable things to protect.
Contributed by Malcolm Davison.
Visit Cuckfield Museum, follow the link for details https://cuckfieldmuseum.org.
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