From: J. V. Field [mailto: [log in to unmask]]
Sent: 21 December 2006 22:55
Subject: Bletchley Park petition
Bletchley Park, an undistinguished nineteenth-century country house,
was chosen as the centre for Government codebreaking in WW2 because
of its proximity to a railway station with good connections to
Oxford, Cambridge and London. The gardens were filled with army
huts, so that from the air the place looked like an ordinary army
camp.
The work done there included the breaking of Enigma (using
electromechanical machines called 'bombes') and of the high-level
teleprinter codes that the British cryptanalysts called 'Fish'. Work
on the latter led to the invention of the Colossus machines (which
were electrical). It is clear that the machines built at Bletchley
Park are important components in the ancestry of the modern
electronic computer. The staff included many distinguished
mathematicians, the most famous (now) being Alan Turing.
After the war, the place was used by the Post Office and was
eventually taken over by a Trust which, with the help of volunteer
staff, has run it as a museum since the 1990s. The historic
importance of the site is obvious, but restoration work is expensive
and the Trust has repeatedly found itself in financial difficulties,
to which one possible solution has seemed to be to sell off pieces of
the site for housing development. Government funding, through the
Imperial War Museum, is an obvious solution for preserving the place
in something approximating to its authentically unattractive wartime
condition.
The following item about a petition comes from a list set up to
discuss matters relating to Bletchley Park and the work done there.
J. V. Field
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From: Matt R <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [BPARK] Petition for BP
To: [log in to unmask]
A petition regarding BP was posted to the Downing Street
"e-Petitions" website on the 15th December.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Enigma/
It reads:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Give full
goverment backing to Bletchley Park Trust."
"The goverment should make Bletchley park, home of Enigma, and code
breaking efforts during WW2. Part of the Imperial War Museum, and
ensure the historic site, is not sold out from under the volunteers,
who do such a magificant job preserving this contries Heritage."[sic]
-- Matt
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