A MAN who invented one of the first hospital hoists has died aged 90.

Oxford businessman John Payne, pictured, also spent years helping maintain hospital equipment in Africa.

In 2010 Oxford Brookes University named a new technology lab and architectural workshop John Payne Building in his honour and awarded him an honorary degree.

Mr Payne died on September 24 after a 15-year battle with leukaemia.

His son Tim said: “His engineering skills were extraordinary.

“I suspect a lot of his friends will have some experience of a miraculous John Payne remedy to an engineering challenge, and the things that he designed and made will go on helping people.”

Mr Payne was born in 1923 in St John Street, Oxford, the first child of Frank and Rose Payne.

At 14 he went to the School of Technology in St Ebbe’s for two years, graduating with a certificate in Mechanical Engineering.

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 he began an apprenticeship with John Allen and Sons at Cowley, manufacturing the famous Allen scythes and mobile cranes.

When the war ended he went to work at his father’s engineering business in Worcester Place, Jericho.

Around that time he also worked with Bob Moss, of Moss Plastics in Banbury, on a plastics moulding machine. The design was a success and became the foundation of the business Banbury Plastics.

In 1953 Mr Payne met Helene Woodward, a secretary at Thomas Mallam Grimsdale solicitors.

They married in July that year and had three children – Barbara in 1954, Valerie in 1957 and Tim in 1959.

In the 1960s Mr Payne designed one of the world’s first hospital hoists, for lifting disabled people in and out of bed. Demand grew and eventually became a separate hoist department at the company.

The couple split up in 1977, and three years later he married an old friend, Hannah Robinson, nicknamed Robbie.

In 1976, Martin Wood, the head of Oxford Instruments Group, asked Mr Payne if he would consider going to Tanzania to work with his brother Michael, the director of a flying doctor service.

The pair creating a training school for basic engineering and woodworking skills and he continued to fly to Tanzania between 1976 and 1982.

Mr Payne retired from the business in 1997 but continued to work at home.

His last years were packed with interest. Relatives say people beat a path to his workshop door bearing objects that needed mending or designs on the backs of envelopes.

His widow Robbie, 89, said: “John has been the best husband anyone could have had. Loving, caring, helpful, thoughtful, everything that one could want in a man.”

Mr Payne himself once said: “I like solving engineering conundrums and I like using my hands when they are guided by my brain.

“This I suppose, coupled with good luck, good help and enough sense of business, has enabled me to lead a successful and fascinating life.”

Mr Payne is survived by his widow, his three children and four grandchildren. His funeral was held at Cumnor Church yesterday.