Misread Signals: How History Overlooked Women Codebreakers

Dermot Turing analyses why history has overlooked women codebreakers and highlights what can be done to change this.

About the event

Legend has it that Bletchley Park was staffed primarily by women working in menial roles, while a handful of pipe-smoking male boffins did the brainy codebreaking stuff.

As with many legends, this is not true. Both women and men had serious, full-on codebreaking roles, and not just at Bletchley, but in codebreaking agencies in the United States and even in Germany. However, when historic accounts were written, the codebreaker women somehow got left out.

Dermot Turing will highlight who these women were, their roles and achievements, as well as what they went on to do after the war. He will also explore the reasons why they have been seemingly erased from history.

Additional information

This event is eligible for our 20% ticket bundle discount.

Book tickets to three or more different events across the festival and you can save 20%. Tickets must be purchased in the same transaction and the discount will automatically be applied within the basket.

About the speaker

Dermot Turing is the acclaimed author of several books including: ‘Prof: Alan Turing Decoded’, a biography of his famous uncle; ‘The Story of Computing’; and ‘X, Y and Z: The Real Story of How Enigma Was Broken’.

Dermot began writing in 2014 after a career in law. He is a regular speaker at historical events, a trustee of The Turing Trust and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford.