My partner, Christopher Hanson-Abbott, who has died aged 92, devoted much of his life to making the world a safer place. A pioneer of vehicle safety technology, he introduced reversing alarms from Japan to Britain and later helped develop broadband reversing alarm technology that has saved countless lives worldwide.
Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Chris was the son of Clifford Hanson-Abbott, an RAF officer, and Edna (nee Johnson), a good club golfer.
During the second world war, the family moved frequently between RAF stations across Britain. Fascinated by aviation, Chris developed a lifelong love of aircraft and could identify virtually every plane that flew overhead.
Educated at Haileybury in Hertfordshire, and later at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Chris was commissioned into the Royal Artillery before becoming a shipbroker at the Baltic Exchange. His career took him to Hong Kong and Japan, where he first encountered reversing alarms, then unknown in Britain.
In 1976 he founded Brigade Electronics and became the first person to introduce reversing alarms commercially to the UK. Later, working with his Japanese colleague Masato Yamashita, he helped pioneer the use of multifrequency broadband sound in reversing alarms. Unlike traditional alarms, the patented technology allowed people to identify instantly the direction of danger while reducing noise pollution. The technology was subsequently used in vehicle safety systems, tunnels and emergency evacuation environments. Chris often said that he worked in “the business of saving lives”, and he genuinely did.
For his contribution to road and workplace safety he was appointed OBE in 2014. Brigade Electronics grew into an international company whose achievements were recognised with both the Queen’s Award for Enterprise (2019) and the King’s Award for Enterprise (2024).
Beyond business, Chris was passionate about music. Living in south-east London, he founded the Vivamus choir, and served as a director of Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and the Arts, and later (2012-17) of Quiet Mark, an organisation whose mission to reduce unnecessary noise strongly reflected his own values. A familiar figure in Greenwich, he was known for his generosity and his encouragement and support of local people and organisations.
Chris was married and divorced three times. He is survived by four children, Adrian, Philip, Nicola and Julia, from his first marriage, to Caroline Squire; a daughter, Charlotte, from his second marriage, to Fiona Todd, eight grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and me, his partner of 23 years.
