Alda Milner-Barry

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Alda Milner-Barry
Born(1893-07-05)5 July 1893
Died26 March 1938(1938-03-26) (aged 44)
Cambridgeshire, England
Occupation(s)Educator, codebreaker
RelativesStuart Milner-Barry (brother)
W. H. Besant (grandfather)

Alda Mary Milner-Barry (5 July 1893 – 26 March 1938)[1] was a British cryptoanalyst and academic. She was a fellow and vice-principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, and part of MI1b, the British military intelligence unit of the War Office in World War I.[2][3]

Personal life

Alda Milner-Barry was born in 1893, the daughter of Edward Leopold Milner-Barry, Professor of Modern Languages at the University of Bangor, and his wife Edith Mary Milner-Barry (née Besant).[4][5] Her grandfather was William H. Besant, a mathematical fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.[2] Her aunt Alda Marguerite Milner-Barry was an author, lecturer, and hymnwriter.[6] Her younger brother, Stuart Milner-Barry, was a renowned chess player and would become a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during World War II.[2][4][7]

Career

While an undergraduate at Newnham College, Cambridge,[2] Alda Milner-Barry covered her father's lessons at the University of Bangor while he was working as a translator in the British Admiralty.[5][8] She completed the Medieval and Modern Languages tripos at Cambridge in two years, instead of the usual three, in 1914.[9] In 1916, she graduated with first class honours in English and German. She immediately took up work as a translator in the Intelligence Department of the War Office.[2] In around 1917, Milner-Barry was the interim Professor of German at University College Galway for a year. She then went to MI1b, where she was appointed deputy to codebreaker Emily Anderson.[2]

From 1920 to 1934, she was a lecturer in English at the University of Birmingham and, from 1934 to 1938, the tutor of Sidgwick Hall, Newnham College.[10] She became vice-principal of the college, remaining in that position until her death in 1938, at the age of 44, at a nursing home in Cambridgeshire.[2][7]

Publications

  • Milner-Barry, Alda (1926). "A Note on the Early Literary Relations of Oliver Goldsmith and Thomas Percy". The Review of English Studies. 2 (5): 51–61. doi:10.1093/res/os-II.5.51. ISSN 0034-6551. JSTOR 507645.
  • Milner-Barry, Alda (1927). "Review of The History and Sources of Percy's Memoir of Goldsmith". The Review of English Studies. 3 (10): 232–234. doi:10.1093/res/os-III.10.232. ISSN 0034-6551. JSTOR 508289.

References

  1. ^ Birth date from Norfolk, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1922, page 174; death date from England & Wales National Probate Calendar, 1938, page 240; both via Ancestry.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Chionna, Jackie Ui (2023). The Queen of Codes: The Secret Life of Emily Anderson, Britain's Greatest Female Code Breaker. Headline. pp. 43–44. ISBN 9781472295477.
  3. ^ "Research uncovers secrets of Newnham women sent to codebreak at Bletchley Park – Newnham College". newn.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  4. ^ a b Upham, John (25 March 2020). "Remembering Sir Stuart Milner-Barry KCVO CB OBE (20-ix-1906 25-iii-1995)". British Chess News. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  5. ^ a b "In memory of the fallen of the University: 1914-1918". Bangor University. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  6. ^ "Alda Marguerite Milner-Barry". The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  7. ^ a b Ferguson, Donna (17 March 2024). "Cambridge college unmasks alumnae who were Bletchley Park codebreakers". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
  8. ^ "Personal". The Merioneth News and Herald and Barmouth Record. 25 September 1914. p. 5. Retrieved 16 March 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "Bangor Students' Success". Liverpool Daily Post. 26 June 1914. p. 15. Retrieved 16 March 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "Miss Alda Milner-Barry". The Times. 5 April 1938. p. 18 – via Gale.
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