John Harper (born 11 November 1937) is a retired

computer engineer Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer enginee ...

. He led a

Computer Conservation Society The Computer Conservation Society (CCS) is a British organisation, founded in 1989. It is under the joint umbrella of the British Computer Society (BCS), the London Science Museum and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Overview Th ...

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

team that rebuilt a working

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

electromechanical

Bombe The bombe () was an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced their own machines to the same functiona ...

decryption device.

Life and career

Born in

West Ealing West Ealing is a district in the London Borough of Ealing, in West London. The district is about west of Ealing Broadway. Although there is a long history of settlement in the area, West Ealing in its present form is less than one hundred year ...

, London he spent most of his career working for

International Computers Limited International Computers Limited (ICL) was a British computer hardware, computer software and computer services company that operated from 1968 until 2002. It was formed through a merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), English ...

working on machines such as the ICT 1500 and the

ICL 1900 ICT 1900 was a family of mainframe computers released by International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) and later International Computers Limited (ICL) during the 1960s and 1970s. The 1900 series was notable for being one of the few non-American c ...

and 2900. By completing evening study he qualified for membership of the

British Computer Society Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in infor ...

(BCS) and Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers (IERE) including becoming a

Chartered Engineer Regulation and licensure in engineering is established by various jurisdictions of the world to encourage life, public welfare, safety, well-being, then environment and other interests of the general public and to define the licensure process thro ...

."John Harper, Leader of the Bombe Rebuild Team receives Honorary Fellowship of BCS"
Bletchley Park News. Retrieved 16 June 2011. He was a member of the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee set up to organise events for the Alan Turing year, a centenary celebration of the life and work of

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical c ...

in 2012.

Bombe Rebuild Project

John Harper, from 1995 to 2006, led a Computer Conservation Society team rebuilding a working World War II

decryption device. On 6 September 2006, John Harper and the rebuild team first demonstrated the working Bombe in action. On 24 March 2009 at Bletchley Park, John Harper was presented with the 49th Engineering Heritage Award by the

Institution of Mechanical Engineers The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is an independent professional association and learned society headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that represents mechanical engineers and the engineering profession. With over 120,000 membe ...

awarded to the BCS Computer Conversation Society for the conservation and restoration of the Bombe.

Awards

*Honorary Fellow, British Computer Society (2007) *Honorary Doctor of the University, Open University (2011)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harper, John British computer specialists Bletchley Park people Fellows of the British Computer Society 1937 births English engineers Living people 20th-century British engineers