Stuart Milner-Barry

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Sir (Philip) Stuart Milner-Barry OBE CB KCVO (20 September 1906–25 March 1995) was a British chess player, chess writer, World War II codebreaker and civil servant. He worked at Bletchley Park during World War II, and was head of "Hut 6", a section responsible for deciphering messages which had been encrypted using the German Enigma machine. He was one of four leading codebreakers at Bletchley to petition the then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill directly for more resources for their work. After the war he worked in the Treasury and later administered the British honours system. In chess, he represented England in international tournaments and lent his name to three opening variations.

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[edit] Early life and education

Born in Hendon, London, Philip Stuart was the second of six children to a schoolteacher, Edward Leopold Milner-Barry, who died in 1917, and his wife, Edith Mary.[1][2] A talented chess player, he won the first British Boys' Championship in 1923.[3] He was a pupil at Cheltenham College, and won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained firsts in classics and moral sciences.[1] At Cambridge, he befriended another chess player, C. H. O'D. (Hugh) Alexander, and composed a number of chess puzzles.[4] Between 1929 and 1938 he was a city stockbroker, although he was unhappy with the work.[2][5] From 1938, he was the chess correspondent for The Times, succeeded in 1945 by Harry Golombek.[1]

He represented England in chess, and played in the international olympiads of 1937 and 1939.[1] The latter tournament, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, coincided with Britain's declaration of war on Germany in September 1939. Milner-Barry, with team-mates Hugh Alexander (at that time the British chess champion) and Harry Golombek, abandoned the tournament and returned to Britain.[1]

[edit] Bletchley Park

The original Hut 6 building (photographed in 2004). Milner-Barry joined Hut 6 in early 1940, and worked in the section throughout World War II. He became head of Hut 6 in Autumn 1943.
The original Hut 6 building (photographed in 2004). Milner-Barry joined Hut 6 in early 1940, and worked in the section throughout World War II. He became head of Hut 6 in Autumn 1943.

Upon their return, all three soon joined the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS) at Bletchley Park. Milner-Barry was recruited by mathematician Gordon Welchman, who had been his contemporary at Trinity College;[1] in turn Milner-Barry recruited Hugh Alexander.[6] Arriving in early 1940, he joined Welchman's "Hut 6" section, whose task was to solve the Enigma cipher machine as used by the German Army and Air Force.[1]

In 1993, Milner-Barry wrote that "to this day I could not claim that I fully understood how the machine worked, let alone what was involved in the problems of breaking and reading the Enigma cipher".[7] Nonetheless, with his knowledge of the German language, he made a study of the decrypts and found that they contained stereotyped patterns and forms of address that could be exploited as "cribs" — reliable guesses for the plain language message that matched a given piece of encrypted text.[8] Finding reliable cribs was a critical task for Hut 6, as Enigma was broken primarily with the aid of "bombes", large electromechanical machines which automatically searched for the correct setting. Bombes were reliant on a suitable crib in order to succeed. In Autumn 1940, he was put in charge of the "Crib Room".[9]

He was billeted with Alexander, who was working in Hut 8, the counterpart to Hut 6 working on German Naval Enigma. Their close friendship let them easily resolve the competing needs of their sections for the limited available bombe time.[10] By October 1941, he was deputy head of Hut 6 under Welchman.[11] At this time, Bletchley Park was experiencing a shortage of clerical staff which was delaying the work on Enigma, and the management of GCCS appeared unable to obtain the resources needed. This affected both Hut 6 and Hut 8, which was run by mathematician Alan Turing with Hugh Alexander as his deputy. Together, Welchman, Milner-Barry, Turing and Alexander bypassed the chain of command and wrote a memorandum directly to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, outlining their difficulties.[11] It fell to Milner-Barry to deliver the message to 10 Downing Street in person, on the 21 October 1941. The next day, Churchill responded, "Action this day: Make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this has been done".[12] Within a month their needs were being met.[11]

In Autumn 1943, Milner-Barry took over as head of Hut 6, which by that time had grown to over 450 staff, Welchman having been appointed the Assistant Director of Mechanisation at Bletchley Park[1][13] He remained in charge until the end of the war, presiding over a number of technical challenges presented by the introduction of extra security devices to the German Enigma, including the Enigma Uhr and a rewireable "reflector" rotor.[1] His entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes that, "although he increasingly felt that Hut 6 was on the verge of losing the ability to decode Enigma, it held on until the end of the war, and this was due in no small part to his gifted leadership."[1] The official history of Hut 6, written immediately after the end of World War II, comments on his early "most vital technical achievement" in finding cribs, and on his "administrative and diplomatic talents" in his later role as head of the section.[14]

[edit] After World War II

Image:chess zhor 26.png
Image:chess zver 26.png a8 rd b8 c8 bd d8 qd e8 kd f8 g8 h8 rd Image:chess zver 26.png
a7 pd b7 pd c7 pd d7 pd e7 f7 pd g7 pd h7 pd
a6 b6 c6 nd d6 e6 pd f6 nd g6 h6
a5 b5 c5 d5 e5 f5 g5 h5
a4 b4 bd c4 pl d4 pl e4 f4 g4 h4
a3 b3 c3 nl d3 e3 f3 g3 h3
a2 pl b2 pl c2 ql d2 e2 pl f2 pl g2 pl h2 pl
a1 rl b1 c1 bl d1 e1 kl f1 bl g1 nl h1 rl
Image:chess zhor 26.png
Milner-Barry Variation of the Nimzo-Indian Defence.

Milner-Barry joined the Treasury in 1945 with the grade of Principal. In 1947, he married Thelma Tennant Wells, with whom he had a son and two daughters.[1] The same year, he was promoted to Assistant Secretary, and Under Secretary in 1954.[3] Apart from a stint in the Ministry of Health from 1958-1960,[3] he remained with the Treasury until 1966, when, aged 60, he had reached the normal retirement age for the civil service.[2] He was persuaded instead to carry on as a ceremonial officer administering the honours system. In this role, he supported the knighthood of P. G. Wodehouse and Noel Coward.[15] Milner-Barry eventually retired in 1977.[3] He was appointed OBE in 1946 for his work in World War II, CB in 1962, and KCVO in 1975.[1]

He had also continued to play chess, competing in the 1952 and 1956 olympiads,[1] and coming second at Hastings in 1953.[16] He was president of the British Chess Federation between 1970 and 1973,[3] and was still competing in tournaments into his 80s.[4] His obituary in The Independent recalled his "savagely effective attacking style, honed to perfection through a series of `serious friendly games' against his old rival Hugh Alexander".[3] In 1972, George Koltanowski wrote that, "his style was very pleasing to spectators because he was always looking for dangerous continuations and quite often he found them!"[17] His name is associated with three chess opening variations: the Milner-Barry Variation of the Nimzo-Indian Defence (E33 in the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings), the Milner-Barry Gambit in the French Defence,[3] and the Milner-Barry variation in the Petroff Defence. (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Qe2 Qe7 6. d3 Nf6 7. Bg5 Nbd7).

Milner-Barry fiercely defended the reputation of Gordon Welchman in 1985, who had come under posthumous criticism for publishing details about the wartime work of Hut 6.[2] In 1992, echoing his wartime visit to 10 Downing Street, Milner-Barry was a member of a party who delivered a petition to the Prime Minister calling on the government to help preserve Bletchley Park, which was then under threat from demolition.[18]

He died on 25 March 1995 in Lewisham Hospital, London,[1] and a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey on 15 June.[19]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Ralph Erskine, "Barry, Sir (Philip) Stuart Milner- (1906–1995)" in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004
  2. ^ a b c d "Sir Stuart Milner-Barry - Obituary", The Times, March 28, 1995
  3. ^ a b c d e f g William Hartston, "Obituary: Sir Stuart Milner-Barry", The Independent, 29 March 1995
  4. ^ a b William Hartson, "Chess", The Independent, 30 March 1995
  5. ^ Gordon Welchman, The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes, p. 84, first edition 1982; revised edition: M & M Baldwin, December 1997, ISBN 0-947712-34-8
  6. ^ Stephen Budiansky, Battle of Wits, 2000, p. 137
  7. ^ Stuart Milner-Barry, "Hut 6: Early days", pp. 89-99 in Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park, edited by F. H. Hinsley, and Alan Stripp, Oxford University Press, 2003
  8. ^ Welchman, 1982, pp. 98, 110
  9. ^ Welchman, 1982, p. 120
  10. ^ Milner-Barry, 2003, p. 95-96
  11. ^ a b c David Kahn, Seizing the Enigma, 1991, pp. 186-188
  12. ^ pp. ix-xiii in Ralph Erskine and Michael Smith eds, Action this Day, 2001
  13. ^ The History of Hut 6, Volume I, PRO HW 43/70, September 1945, p. 12
  14. ^ History of Hut 6, 1945, pp. 27-28
  15. ^ Alan Hamilton, "Bertie Wooster messed it up for his creator", The Times, 16 August 2002
  16. ^ Golombek, Harry (1977), Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, Crown Publishing, pp. 200–201, ISBN 0-517-53146-1 . This was probably the Challengers section, as Milner-Barry did not play in the Hastings Premier section in either 1952/3 or 1953/4 according to tournament crosstables in Sunnucks, Anne (1970), The Encyclopaedia of Chess, St. Martin's Press, pp. 190–191, LCCN 78-106371 .
  17. ^ George Koltanowski, With the Chess Masters, Falcon, 1972
  18. ^ Ted Enever, Britain's Best Kept Secret, 2000, ISBN 0750923555, pp. 84-85
  19. ^ "Sir Stuart Milner-Barry - Memorial service", The Times, 16 June 1995

[edit] External links