Turing history in the spotlight as Bletchley Park CEO visits HMGCC

Two halves of Alan Turing’s World War 2 history came together when Bletchley Park’s CEO paid a recent visit to HMGCC. Bletchley Park CEO Iain Standen was a special guest at HMGCC where he given a tour showcasing some of Hanslope Park’s history. Iain was also given an overview of some of the World War 2 artefacts held at HMGCC.

Turing’s name has strong connections with Hanslope Park as he spent 18 months of the war here, developing a speech encryption system which came to be known as Delilah.

A team of volunteers led by John Harper are currently being supported by HMGCC engineers in an ambitious project to rebuild Delilah. The replica model was among a collection of artefacts on display during this visit, tracing HMGCC’s history back to its origins in 1938.

In 1943, Turing had visited the USA and spent time at the research and scientific development company Bell Labs. There he saw a speech encryption system called Sigsaly, a device which demonstrated many firsts in communications technology. Sigsaly was physically large, weighing about 50 tonnes and consuming 30 kilowatts of electricity.

By the time Turing returned to the UK, he had conceived the idea of Delilah as a smaller and simpler secure speech system. By the end of World War 2, Turing, working with electrical engineer Donald Bayley had succeeded in making a working prototype which they demonstrated to visitors by playing recordings of speeches by Churchill. 

Iain said: "It was a great privilege and pleasure to visit HMGCC and to meet with CEO George Williamson and some of his team. We were able to have some interesting discussions about the strong shared heritage that exists between Bletchley Park and Hanslope Park, including the work of Alan Turing, and the possibilities for sharing that history with wider audiences in the future." 

The two sites also worked together earlier this year when Bletchley Park was the setting for a special event involving nearly 200 students from across Milton Keynes who attended to learn more about apprenticeship opportunities. They also took part in a series of workshops, many delivered by HMGCC staff, which were aimed at inspiring a love of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). 

HMGCC CEO George Williamson, who met Iain as part of the visit, said: “We were really pleased to host a special visit from Iain Standen and to have the chance to share some of our linked history with Bletchley Park.

“We see Alan Turing’s World War 2 contributions very much as two halves of a story. There has been a huge public focus on his amazing work with the Enigma cypher at Bletchley, but what is less well known is he then spent a considerable amount of time living at Hanslope Park and working on speech encryption.

“We were delighted to share some of our fascinating 1940s artefacts with Iain and to talk all things history and Turing.”