Alda Milner-Barry
{{Short description|British cryptoanalyst and academic (1893-1938)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Alda Milner-Barry
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1893|7|5|df=y}}
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1938|03|26|1893|7|5|df=y}}
| death_place = Cambridgeshire, England
| occupation = Educator, codebreaker
| relatives = Stuart Milner-Barry (brother)
W. H. Besant (grandfather)
}}
Alda Mary Milner-Barry (5 July 1893 – 26 March 1938)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. 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.{{cite book |last1=Chionna |first1=Jackie Ui |title=The Queen of Codes: The Secret Life of Emily Anderson, Britain's Greatest Female Code Breaker |date=2023 |publisher=Headline |isbn=9781472295477 |pages=43–44}}{{cite web |title=Research uncovers secrets of Newnham women sent to codebreak at Bletchley Park – Newnham College |url=https://newn.cam.ac.uk/newnham-news/research-uncovers-secrets-of-newnham-women-sent-to-codebreak-at-bletchley-park/ |website=newn.cam.ac.uk |date=13 February 2024 |access-date=16 March 2024}}
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 ({{nee|Besant}}).{{cite web |title=In memory of the fallen of the University: 1914-1918 |url=https://www.bangor.ac.uk/archives-and-special-collections/in-memory-of-the-fallen-of-the-university-1914-1918 |website=Bangor University |access-date=16 March 2024 |language=en}} Her grandfather was William H. Besant, a mathematical fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Her aunt Alda Marguerite Milner-Barry was an author, lecturer, and hymnwriter.{{Cite web |title=Alda Marguerite Milner-Barry |url=http://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/a/alda-marguerite-milner-barry |access-date=16 March 2024 |website=The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology}} Her younger brother, Stuart Milner-Barry, was a renowned chess player and
would become a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during World War II.{{cite web |last1=Upham |first1=John |title=Remembering Sir Stuart Milner-Barry KCVO CB OBE (20-ix-1906 25-iii-1995) |url=https://britishchessnews.com/2020/03/25/remembering-sir-philip-stuart-milner-barry-obe-20-ix-1906-25-iii-1995/ |website=British Chess News |access-date=16 March 2024 |date=25 March 2020}}{{cite news |last1=Ferguson |first1=Donna |title=Cambridge college unmasks alumnae who were Bletchley Park codebreakers |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/17/cambridge-newnham-college-alumnae-bletchley-park-codebreakers |access-date=17 March 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=17 March 2024}}
Career
While an undergraduate at Newnham College, Cambridge, (1912-1914){{cite web |title=Cracking the code |url=https://newn.cam.ac.uk/newnham-news/cracking-code |publisher=Newnham College, Cambridge |access-date=4 June 2025 |quote=Alda Milner-Barry NC 1910 (entered NC in 1910, finished course in 2 years, graduating in 1914)}} Alda Milner-Barry covered her father's lessons at the University of Bangor while he was working as a translator in the British Admiralty.{{Cite news |date=25 September 1914 |title=Personal |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-merioneth-news-and-herald-and-barmou/143485586/ |access-date=16 March 2024 |work=The Merioneth News and Herald and Barmouth Record |pages=5 |via=Newspapers.com}}
She completed the Medieval and Modern Languages tripos at Cambridge in two years, instead of the usual three, in 1914.{{Cite news |date=26 June 1914 |title=Bangor Students' Success |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/liverpool-daily-post-bangor-students-su/143485903/ |access-date=16 March 2024 |work=Liverpool Daily Post |pages=15 |via=Newspapers.com}} 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. 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.
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.{{Cite news |date=5 April 1938 |title=Miss Alda Milner-Barry |work=The Times |page=18 |via=Gale}}{{cite news |title=E163 - The Women of Newnham College |url=https://bletchleypark.org.uk/our-story/e163-the-women-of-newnham-college/ |website=Bletchley Park |access-date=2 May 2024 |date=26 April 2024}} 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.
Publications
- {{Cite journal |ref=none |last=Milner-Barry |first=Alda |date=1926 |title=A Note on the Early Literary Relations of Oliver Goldsmith and Thomas Percy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/507645 |journal=The Review of English Studies |volume=2 |issue=5 |pages=51–61 |doi=10.1093/res/os-II.5.51 |jstor=507645 |issn=0034-6551|url-access=subscription }}
- {{Cite journal |ref=none |last=Milner-Barry |first=Alda |date=1927 |title=Review of The History and Sources of Percy's Memoir of Goldsmith |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/508289 |journal=The Review of English Studies |volume=3 |issue=10 |pages=232–234 |doi=10.1093/res/os-III.10.232 |jstor=508289 |issn=0034-6551|url-access=subscription }}
References
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Category:20th-century British women writers
Category:Academics of the University of Galway
Category:Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge