AN ILLUSTRATED talk exploring how the achievements of women codebreakers have been misrepresented – or entirely omitted – from the historical record is set to be hosted in Malvern later this year.
Dermot Turing, renowned historian and nephew of wartime codebreaking pioneer Alan Turing, will host his talk Misread Signals: How History Overlooked Women Codebreakers – inspired by his book of the same name.
The event will challenge the dominant narratives of wartime intelligence, which have long centred on male figures such as Alan Turing, William Tutte, and John Tiltman, while relegating women to the background.
In reality, women were not just clerical staff – many played direct, critical roles in breaking high-level enemy codes across the UK, the US, and beyond.
The talk is being held in Malvern, a town with its own deep wartime scientific legacy. During the Second World War, Malvern became home to the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE), the UK’s leading radar and electronic warfare research centre.
While Alan Turing himself was primarily based at Bletchley Park, his work in cryptology and speech encryption ran in parallel with – and was complemented by – the pioneering efforts at TRE.
These institutions formed part of a closely linked wartime intelligence network that helped shape the Allied victory.
Dermot Turing will shine a light on the forgotten women of this network, including Margaret Rock, who worked on solving Enigma and other complex machine ciphers, Agnes Driscoll, the first woman to break codes for the US Navy, and Asta Friedrichs, whose intelligence work postwar shed light on German Foreign Office cryptography.
Presented with striking illustrations and lesser-known archival material, Misread Signals offers a necessary correction to the historical record and places these overlooked women back where they belong – at the forefront of wartime codebreaking.
The event is sponsored by the Malvern Community Partnership. Following the talk, attendees will have the opportunity to meet Dermot Turing and purchase signed copies of his latest book, Misread Signals, which expands on the stories featured in the presentation.
The event takes place at 7.30pm on Thursday, October 16 at Forum Theatre, Malvern.
