Joan Clarke

Rating

Domains

Scouting report

One of the very few women doing cryptanalytic rather than clerical work at Bletchley Park, in the Hut 8 team attacking naval Enigma, and a practitioner of Banburismus. She was initially classified as a linguist because the pay grades had no category for a woman cryptanalyst. The work stayed secret for decades, so the record of it is thinner than it should be.

Curator’s note

The openness score is low because the Official Secrets Act made it so.

Sources

• 01Joan Clarke en.wikipedia.org
• 02Bletchley Park bletchleypark.org.uk