Rolf Noskwith (19 June 1919 – 3 January 2017) was a British businessman who during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

worked under

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

as a

cryptographer Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More gen ...

at the

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and Bletchley Park estate, estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the S ...

British military base.

Early life and education

Noskwith's parents, Chaim (Charles) and Malka (née Ginsberg), were Eastern European-born Jews who set up a clothing manufacturing company in Germany. Seeing that the political and economic conditions were worsening, they sold their business and emigrated to England in 1932, along with their children. The family created another textile company,

Charnos Charnos is a British hosiery manufacturer, founded in 1935 by Charles Noskwith in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, and later run by his son Rolf Noskwith. In January 2019, LF Intimates sold Charnos to Pour Moi Ltd Pour Moi Ltd (generally known as Po ...

, in

Ilkeston Ilkeston ( ) is a town located in the Borough of Erewash in Derbyshire, England, with a population of 40,953 at the 2021 census. Its major industries, coal mining, iron working and lace making/textiles, have now all but disappeared. Part of t ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

, England, that would become the basis of Noskwith's post-war life. Noskwith was educated at

Nottingham High School Nottingham High School is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private fee-charging day school for boys and girls in Nottingham, England, with an infant and junior school (ages 4–11) and senior school (ages 11–18). There were 1177 stu ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

Service in Second World War

Initially, he was not accepted for military service, but after his third attempt, he was accepted to work as a translator and cryptographer at the Bletchley Park facility. His first attempt to work as a codebreaker was turned down because of his German birth and upbringing, but it seems that the security eligibility rules were revised in May 1941 thereby enabling him to enlist.

Government Code and Cypher School, Bletchley Park

After being interviewed by

C. P. Snow Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government.''The Columbia Encyclop ...

and Hugh Alexander, Noskwith was recruited to

and arrived in June 1941. He worked in

Hut 8 Hut 8 was a section in the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park (the British World War II codebreaking station, located in Buckinghamshire) tasked with solving German naval (Kriegsmarine) Enigma messages. The section ...

, focusing on the German navy's

Enigma machine The Enigma machine is a cipher device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic, and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the W ...

, decrypting the

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official military branch, branche ...

's coded wireless traffic from 1941 to 1945, and subsequently on other ciphers. He joined the crib subsection, headed by

Shaun Wylie Shaun Wylie (17 January 1913 – 2 October 2009Offizier settings. He created a crib based on the letters 'EEESSSPATRONE' and had placed into queue to be crunched by Bletchley's

bombe The bombe () was an Electromechanics, electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma machine, Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The United States Navy, US Navy and United Sta ...

analogue computers. The letter pairings referred to colour-coding used by German ships' flares as " friend or foe" detection. When the crib worked, it allowed the Allied forces to read German messages sent to and from

officers. Noskwith recalled that most people were addressed by their first name there: the two exceptions were Alan Turing, known as "Prof"; and F.A. Kendrick, whom he was surprised to see listed in the index of Hinsley and Stripp's book ''Codebreakers'' as Kendrick, Tony.

Later life and death

Beginning in 1946, Noskwith worked for

, the textile company founded by his father, and became its chairman in 1952. Around the year 2000, he was made non-executive chairman of Charnos plc. Noskwith died on 3 January 2017, aged 97. He is thought to have been the last surviving cryptographer of Bletchley Park at the time of his death. Shortly after his death, ''

The Jewish Chronicle ''The Jewish Chronicle'' (''The JC'') is a London-based Jewish weekly newspaper. Founded in 1841, it is the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world. Its editor () is Daniel Schwammenthal. The newspaper is published every Fri ...

'' published a tribute to Noskwith and other Jewish codebreakers by the director of

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primar ...

Robert Hannigan Robert Peter Hannigan CMG (born 1965) is a cybersecurity specialist who has been Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, since 2021. He was a senior British civil servant who previously served as the director of the signals intelligence and crypto ...

, who described their contribution as "out of all proportion to the size of the Jewish community in Britain at the time". Noting the contribution of Jewish staff at Bletchley to the foundation of Israel after World War II he referred to Noskwith's offer of his services in 1947 to

Walter Eytan Walter Eytan (; 24 July 1910 – 23 May 2001) was an Israeli diplomat. He served as Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry in 1948–1959 and Israeli ambassador to France in 1959–1970. Biography Walter Ettinghausen (later ''Eytan'' ...

, who responded "of codebreakers we have plenty!". Following Noskwith's death, a two-page mathematical manuscript handwritten by

was found among his papers and sold at

Bonhams Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. This brought t ...

auction house in London for £44,000 to

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, Turing's former college.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * (Updated and extended version of ''Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer'',

Bantam Press Bantam Press is an imprint of Transworld Publishers which is a British publishing division of Penguin Random House. It is based on Uxbridge Road in Ealing near Ealing Broadway station, London, the same address as Transworld. It releases har ...

, 2001.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Noskwith, Ralph 1919 births 2017 deaths German emigrants to the United Kingdom British cryptographers Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Bletchley Park people British Jews People from Chemnitz