December 2001

Archives show links with Bletchley Park

College archives reveal historic links with Bletchley Park - they hold documentation relating to the recruitment of Bedford College students to work on translations at Bletchley.

Professor Edna Purdie, the head of the German Department in 1941, was approached to recommend capable and enthusiastic students to work on a 'project of national importance' at Bletchley Park. Royal Holloway College has similar links to the code breaking effort, with at least one former student working at the site.

On 13th November Royal Holloway was host to the Bletchley Park Trust as Peter Wescombe presented a fascinating talk entitled: Bletchley Park - the Wider Aspect. His lecture focused upon those aspects of code breaking operations at Bletchley during the Second World War that have not been commonly discussed, most significantly the international co-operation between intelligence forces in Britain, America and Australia, which produced the first world wide intelligence network. This was a refreshing theme, particularly after the recent portrayal of these issues in films such as U-571 and more recently Enigma, both of which treated the covert cryptographic operations as a more nationally isolated concern. Given the secretive and covert nature of operations at Bletchley it is admirable that the Bletchley Park Trust has uncovered so much of its clandestine past, and this is largely testimony to the forces of oral history. However, written records of operations at Bletchley and the people who worked there have also survived, in a variety of places.

Given this former link with the two colleges, it is apt that co-operation between Royal Holloway, University of London and Bletchley has been resumed. Firstly, with work within the information security area, whereby both institutes are establishing business incubation facilities early next year and secondly with the launch of a programme of work led by the History department, drawing upon the resources of the Bletchley archives.

Heather Wardle
Archives Assistant