Bletchley Park wins £4.6m grant

Bletchley Park wins £4.6m grant(bbc.co.uk)

131 points by fakelvis 14 years ago | 24 comments

simonw 14 years ago |

That's fantastic news.

I was at Bletchley Park last weekend for Over The Air, a mobile development conference/hack day. It's a truly extraordinary place - if you haven't been yet, you have a real treat in store.

They've already done a fantastic job bringing the place to life, and the working reconstructions of both Colossus (the first electronic programmable computer) and Alan Turing's Bombe (the mechanical device that cracked Enigma) are both completely spellbinding. They also do a really good tour.

tomstuart 14 years ago | |

It is excellent, and the money is well-deserved.

I wonder whether any of this money will trickle down to the National Museum of Computing (http://tnmoc.org/) at Bletchley Park? That museum is the main thing that gets me returning to Bletchley on a regular basis, but they seem to be constantly struggling for cash in their ongoing battle to keep half a century's worth of computers in working order. On a selfish level, I'm just as interested in preserving that aspect of Bletchley's (and Turing's) heritage.

ra 14 years ago | |

It is fantastic news. It's only recently that the UK government apologized for Turing's post-war mistreatment, which tragically led to his suicide at the age of 42.

I only recently learned of Turings seminal work on mathematical biology; he demonstrated that much of the complexity found in nature is the result of simple algorithms. His concepts we learn about today in fields such as fractals and Chaos theory.

It's possible that Alan Turing might have one become one the all time great scientist had he survived to live out his career.

Bletchley Park is very high on my to do list next time I'm in the UK - along with IWM Duxford [1].

[1] http://duxford.iwm.org.uk/

justincormack 14 years ago | | |

They did officially apologise recently. Some more grants would not go amiss though.

brandnewlow 14 years ago | | |

Is he not already considered an all-time great? Honest question.

mariusz79 14 years ago | |

Enigma has not been cracked by British but by Polish cryptographers. It's very well documented.

jgrahamc 14 years ago | | |

This Wikipedia page covers the history of Enigma cryptanalysis well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma

Bletchley Park fully recognizes the significance of the initial work done in Poland (see, for example, their annual Polish festival: http://www.bletchleypark.co.uk/calendar/event_detail.rhtm?re... and publications like this: http://www.bletchleypark.co.uk/content/hist/history/polish.r... and the Polish memorial on site).

fakelvis 14 years ago |

I just read that the Bletchley Park Trust needs to raise a further £1.7m on their own in order to 'unlock' the £4.6m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.[1]

Time to get that bank card out of my wallet.

[1] http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/contact/donation/sup...

0x12 14 years ago |

JGC will be pleased as punch with this:

http://blog.jgc.org/2010/01/1000-for-bletchley-park-thanks-t...

Great to see that Bletchley Park will live on, it's one of very few historical sites that have meaning to those that are interested in our digital beginnings.

jgrahamc 14 years ago | |

Yes, I am pleased as punch. Especially since when the Alan Turing petition was successful I bent the ear of the then Prime Minister about funding Bletchley Park. Not long after a small amount of lottery funding was announced that enabled them to make the bid for this larger amount. I don't know whether that was really because of me, but it doesn't matter. This news is great.

Here's the email I sent to Downing St. summarizing the situation on September 11, 2009:

  Kirsty,

  As you can imagine I have an Inbox filled with 
  media requests and congratulatory notes from 
  around the world.  A common theme in these
  mails is a desire to see a memorial of some 
  kind to Alan Turing.

  Three suggestions (in order of popularity):

  1. Find some way to fund Bletchley Park and the
  National Museum of Computing.
  2. Use the Fourth Plinth for a Turing statue
  3. Name the marathon at the 2012 Olympics after
  Turing (he was a very good marathon runner and 
  it's his centenary in 2012).

  All of these are good suggestions.  If the government 
  did #1 you would have my full backing.

  John.

It is bloody marvellous that they have got the money to improve the site. I triply love Bletchley Park because of: (a) The codebreakers part (b) The National Museum of Computing and (c) it is now the home of the National Radio Centre (for all the UK hams out there) and I studied to be a radio amateur there with MKARS.

arethuza 14 years ago | | |

I have to say, I really like the idea of using the Fourth Plinth for a statue of Turing - especially if the statue could somehow include some representation of his mathematical works.

bmunro 14 years ago | | |

I had to look up the Fourth Plinth.

It is an empty statue base in Trafalgar Square, London. It is presently used for temporary displays of artworks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_plinth,_Trafalgar_Square

pmr_ 14 years ago |

I have to admit that the first time I got really aware of Bletchley Park was while I was reading Cryptonomicon from Stephenson and started looking into its actual history. One of the few monuments in reality the digital age actually has. Nice to see it preserved.

jgrahamc 14 years ago |

This is really great news for all that love Bletchley Park and for all that have yet to see it.

0x12 14 years ago | |

Hehe, I knew you'd comment here :)

Good stuff.

pbhjpbhj 14 years ago |

How much of it is going to be wasted like this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12575029

Why use tax payers money to buy prints of Turings papers when the original papers weren't lost and the content of the prints was known? Makes no sense to me. Just so you can stick some pieces of paper in a glass case somewhere?

ig1 14 years ago | |

They were papers owned by Turing with his handwritten notes on them.

pbhjpbhj 14 years ago | | |

As I understand it they were mainly offprints (reprints of articles that were bound in the original print run) sent to Prof Newman when Turing was published. It's possible Turing owned them but not in any significant way. Newman kept the papers. Then he tried to flog them for £½ million at Christies, couldn't, but somehow he or his supporters managed to convince the NHMF to give £200,000 GBP (along with £30k (?) or so funds raised elsewhere) for the papers.

It appears from all reports I've seen that there is literally nothing of significance that would be lost with the export of these papers. None of the Press, which all seems to be based on the writing of Gareth Halfacre, detailed what was special about the papers:

"The set includes articles which have been annotated by Newman, along with Max Newman's name inscribed in pencil in Turing's hand. Accompanying the set of offprints is the Newman household visitors’ book with several signatures of Turing, that of Turing’s mother and, of special significance to Bletchley Park, signatures of other wartime codebreaking giants." [from http://www.nhmf.org.uk/LatestNews/Pages/EleventhHourRescueof...]

It seems the public were sold a lie. People thought the papers were Turings original notes and such when in fact he just wrote his friends name on the top.

The NHMF should now just take hi-res scans of the documents and sell them for whatever they can get. Nothing of significance will be lost you can look up the papers on Google Scholar.

Edit: as an associated example, you can get http://plms.oxfordjournals.org/content/s2-42/1/230.extract for free but it costs you $22k for the first edition print (http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=sea...). IMO the free online version is more valuable.

DanBC 14 years ago |

The history is important, and I'm really pleased they got some money. They still need a bit more. And really, in the scheme of things, a couple of million is not much for such an important site. I am worried about them being able to get it, especially at the moment.

It's a bit depressing that programming and that kind of thinking is neglected in the curriculum.

tobylane 14 years ago |

I went recently, it really needs the money. It needs it so bad I wouldn't bother going until they've spent this money. Donate in the meantime.

knotty66 14 years ago |

Terrific news - a shame Tony Sale was not here to see it.

Kirsty, As you can imagine I have an Inbox filled with media requests and congratulatory notes from around the world. A common theme in these mails is a desire to see a memorial of some kind to Alan Turing. Three suggestions (in order of popularity): 1. Find some way to fund Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing. 2. Use the Fourth Plinth for a Turing statue 3. Name the marathon at the 2012 Olympics after Turing (he was a very good marathon runner and it's his centenary in 2012). All of these are good suggestions. If the government did #1 you would have my full backing. John.