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Helene Aldwinckle

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British translator and gallerist (1920–2020)

Helene Aldwinckle
BornHelene Lovie Taylor
(1920-10-26)26 October 1920
Died24 April 2020(2020-04-24) (aged 99)
Alma materUniversity of Aberdeen
Known forCodebreaking at Bletchley Park
Awards Legion of Honour – Knight (2019)

Helene Aldwinckle (née Helene Lovie Taylor) (26 October 1920 – 24 April 2020), was a Bletchley Park codebreaker during the Second World War.

Early life and family

Helene Lovie Taylor was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1920, to Alexander and Helen Taylor (née Trail). Her father was a salesman. She grew up in Footdee, and attended Ashley Road Primary School then Aberdeen Academy, and eventually won a scholarship to study French and English at the University of Aberdeen. Taylor married John Aldwinckle, an RAF flight lieutenant, in February 1945. They had four children: Richard, Linda, Pamela, and Lady Diana Browne. John Aldwinckle died in 2012.

Career

Helene Taylor joined Bletchley Park after completing a three year degree in French and English at Aberdeen University. She was recommended by Aberdeen University Principal William Hamilton Fyfe to the Foreign Office, in part because of her extraordinary memory and interest in languages. After two rounds of interviews with the Foreign Office in London and Aberdeen, Helene was selected by senior codebreaker Stuart Milner-Barry to become a permanent Foreign Office Civil Servant and was sent to live at Bletchley Park in the summer of 1942. During the first round of interviews, Aldwinckle was not aware of what she was being interviewed for, believing it to be a general civil service role.

Helene was initially based in Registration Room 1 (RR1), where she worked on encrypted signals. She became responsible for leading a training programme for American service personnel in 1943. When the programme was complete, Helene went to work in Quiet Room (QR) in Hut 6, the section of Bletchley Park tasked with deciphering Enigma codes. There she brought the knowledge and skills she developed training American personnel to longer term and more complicated encryption problems, including identifying Enigma radio networks and radio signals. After the Second World War ended, Helene stayed for a short time at Bletchley Park to help write the history of the work of Hut 6 but she had to leave the Foreign Office in 1945 due to a policy that said women could not stay employed after marriage.

Aldwinckle lived in Cologne and Berlin, accompanying her husband John in his role at MI6, moving initially in the 1950s. She worked for both the British Forces Network and Westdeutscher Rundfunk as a cultural events reporter. She continued her interest in amateur dramatics (having been involved in her youth in Aberdeen) joining the Berlin Amateur Dramatic Society. She accompanied John on subsequent postings to France, Germany and Britain, and they also lived in Rome, Brussels, and Mons.

Aldwinckle had a varied career post-Bletchley, becoming a translator for Thames and Hudson in 1967; and a gallerist at the Medici Gallery at the age of 54. She later worked at the Oxford Gallery, and in 1979 became the manager of the Medici.

Honours

Aldwinckle was awarded a Knight in France's Legion of Honour on 19 July 2019 in a ceremony in London's French embassy. Theresa May thanked her, in May's final Prime Minister's Questions. A blue plaque honouring Helene Aldwinckle was unveiled at 76 Farquhar Road, Dulwich, on 4 September 2022.

References

  1. ^ "Bletchley Park codebreaker and player of a small but important role in the special relationship between Britain and the US - Helene Aldwinckle". The Times. 8 May 2020. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  2. McCann, Lee (16 November 2016). "Proud moment as Aberdeen woman who helped decode Enigma messages during WW2 honoured". Evening Express. Retrieved 5 June 2020.
  3. ^ "Helene Aldwinckle obituary". the Guardian. 13 July 2020. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  4. ^ "Roll of Honour — Helene Lovie Taylor". Bletchley Park. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  5. ^ Drysdale, Neil (8 May 2020). "Code breaker has cracking war memories". Aberdeen Evening Express (Scotland).
  6. ^ OSullivan, Kevin (24 July 2019). "Scots wartime codebreaker receives France's highest civilian and military honour". FutureScot. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  7. ^ "Bletchley Park Veteran receives France's highest honour". Bletchley Park. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  8. ^ Drysdale, Neil (22 January 2020). "Genius code-cracker Turing celebrated on 80th anniversary of breaking Enigma". Press and Journal. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  9. "Helene Aldwinckle Southwark blue plaque unveiling". www.dulwichsociety.com. Retrieved 5 September 2022.

See also

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