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Bletchley Park codebreaker correspondence handed to archive

Churchill Archives Centre Image showing Gordon Welchman's OBE and Peter Twinn's Enigma correspondence.Churchill Archives Centre
Gordon Welchman's OBE and Peter Twinn's Enigma correspondence are in the archive

A collection of material related to Britain's World War 2 codebreakers is being handed to a Cambridge university college archive.

The material given by families of Bletchley Park's codebreakers was gathered by historian Joel Greenberg.

Allen Packwood, director of the centre, said the documents "shed light on the interrelationships between the codebreakers".

It will be housed by the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge.

Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate near Milton Keynes that became the centre of Allied codebreaking during the war.

PA Media Bletchley ParkPA Media
The codebreakers at Bletchley Park were said to have brought forward the conclusion of the war by years

The material being handed to the archives includes Alastair Denniston's engagement diary for 1939 - recording his famous trip to Warsaw to obtain vital information that would help the British crack the German Enigma system.

The public will also be able to view correspondence between some of the key players at Bletchley Park, plus papers and personal possessions of Gordon Welchman - the prime mover behind a letter to Winston Churchill that asked for more resources for codebreaking.

Churchill Archives Centre Letter from Sir Edward Travis to Gordon Welchman regarding his war service at Bletchley Park, 1946Churchill Archives Centre
Gordon Welchman received a congratulatory letter about his service from Sir Edward Travis, who became head of Bletchley Park

Mr Packwood said the archive "combines some contemporary documents with a wealth of... correspondence".

A book by Mr Greenberg, titled The Bletchley Park Codebreakers: In Their Own Words, has also been published to coincide with the handover of the papers on Tuesday.

He said: "Cambridge is the right home for this material given that many of the codebreakers, including Welchman, were Cambridge graduates."

The Churchill Archives Centre began by collecting papers of Winston Churchill and other contemporaries and has grown to become an important resource for the study of modern history, from the late 19th Century to the present day.

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