Queen’s University Archives

Hugh Le Caine (1914-1977) was an inventor, a physicist and a composer. He was born and raised in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) in northwestern Ontario. After earning his Master of Science degree from Queen's University in 1939, Le Caine joined the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in Ottawa. There, he worked on the development of the first radar systems and in atomic physics, distinguishing himself as a scientist and publishing significant papers in those fields. In 1945, he began to work independently on the design of electronic musical instruments such as the Electronic Sackbut, the first voltage-controlled synthesizer. Le Caine later developed voltage-control systems for a wide variety of applications. In 1948 Le Caine went to England for four years of graduate studies in physics. He was invited to work on his musical activities full-time at the NRC in 1954. Over the next twenty years, he built over twenty-two different new instruments. He collaborated in the development of two pioneering electronic music studios at the University of Toronto (opened in 1959) and at McGill University in Montreal (opened in 1964). Le Caine retired from the National Research Council in 1974. He died in July of 1977 as a result of injuries incurred in a motorcycle accident on July 4, 1976.

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