Joan Clarke
More info
- Born
- 24 June 1917
- Died
- 4 September 1996
- Known for
- Hut 8, naval Enigma
- Nationality
- British
One of the few women in a senior role at Bletchley Park — and the bureaucracy had no idea what to call her.
Joan Clarke (1917–1996) earned a double first in mathematics at Cambridge but was denied a full degree, as women were then. In 1940 she was recruited to Bletchley Park and landed in Hut 8, working on naval Enigma alongside Alan Turing — the two were briefly engaged.
She grew adept at Banburismus and was soon reckoned one of the section's best. The snag was administrative: there was no pay grade for a female cryptanalyst, so she was formally logged as a "linguist" despite speaking no foreign languages. After the war she became a numismatist and a recognised authority on Scottish coinage. Her work stayed classified throughout her life; the wider public only heard of her in the 2000s.