Outsiders: Joan Clarke

Joan Clarke (1917-1996) was a codebreaker for the British armed forces during World War II. Her work alongside famous computer scientist Alan Turing was pivotal in decoding Nazi communications and bringing the war to an end. 

For Further Reading:

• Joan Clarke (1917 - 1996) - Biography - MacTutor History of Mathematics
• 100 Years Ago: Joan Clarke
• Joan Clarke, woman who cracked Enigma cyphers with Alan Turing - BBC News  
• The Female Codebreakers Of Bletchley Park | HistoryExtra 

This month we're talking about Outsiders -- women who marched to the beat of their own drum and rejected stereotypes about what women "should" be. They are aesthetic pioneers, norm-benders, and often the only woman in their field.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Luci Jones, Abbey Delk, Adrien Behn, Alyia Yates, Vanessa Handy, Melia Agudelo, and Joia Putnoi. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Womanica. This month, we're talking about outsiders, women who
marched to the beat of their own drum and rejected
stereotypes about what women should be. Their aesthetic pioneers, norm venders,
and often some of the only women in their field.
Today we're talking about a woman whose mathematical prowess and
uncanny wit earned her a spot in Britain's top secret

(00:26):
World War II code breaking operation. Her tireless work deciphering
Nazi communications helped bring an end to the war. Let's
talk about Joan Clark. Joan was born on June twenty fourth,
nineteen seventeen in London, England. Her father was a clergyman,
and Joan and her siblings were raised in an environment
that emphasized the value of education. After graduating from high school,

(00:50):
Johan enrolled in Newnham College, an all women's institution at
Cambridge University. There, she studied mathematics, earning top grades, but
when she graduated in nineteen thirty one, Joan technically only
received a title of degree because Cambridge didn't start awarding
fully fledged degrees to women until after World War II.
While at Newnham, Joanes studied under Gordon Welschman, a mathematician

(01:12):
who was tapped by the British government to be part
of a top secret project during World War II. The
goal to intercept and decode Nazi communications. Because without being
able to read the messages that the Germans were sending
back and forth, Britain and its allies were in the
dark and often unprepared for devastating air raids and submarine strikes.
Joan's former academic supervisor, aware of her impressive intellect, recruited

(01:36):
her to become part of the highly secret code breaking
project known as the Government Code and Cipher's School. In
June of nineteen forty, Joan arrived at Bletchley Park, a
stately Victorian manor fifty miles north of London that had
been repurposed to house the code breaking operation. At first,
Joan was tasked with clerical work. She worked alongside the

(01:58):
many other women at Bletchley three quarters of the staff
was female. Typically, the girls, as they were called had
jobs like punch card machine operators, typhists, secretaries and linguists.
But after just a few days, Joan was tapped to
work more directly on breaking the Nazis code. As the
war raged on, operations at Bletchley had expanded and dozens
of wooden outbuildings dubbed huts were built on the estate

(02:21):
to accommodate the growing workforce. Joan was assigned to work
in Hut eight, alongside a team of men who were,
of course paid more for their work than she was.
The job of a codebreaker at Bletchley was quite daunting.
The German forces were encrypting their messages using a machine
called the Enigma. The Enigma looked sort of like a typewriter,
but it was incredibly sophisticated for the time. Type a

(02:43):
letter into the machine and the Enigma would substitute it
for another, and the machine prevented the same original letter
from being matched to the same code letter. So, for example,
if you were spelling out the word ally ally, the
machine would assign two different letters to those two L's
traditional methods of code breaking were useless in the face

(03:05):
of this innovative device. Plus, to make things more difficult,
the Germans reset their Enigma machines every day. All of
that made the Germans pretty confident that their codes were unbreakable.
It was Joan's job to help prove them wrong. Among
her colleagues in HUT eight was the celebrated computer scientist
and mathematician Alan Turing. Their task was to break the

(03:26):
German Navy's Dolphin Enigma, an even more complicated version of
the normal cipher machine. German U boats were patrolling the Atlantic,
attacking ships carrying much needed food and oil to Britain.
Breaking the Dolphin could help save essential supplies and lives.
Alan Turing developed an electro mechanical machine called the Bomb
to help break the Enigma code. He also developed a

(03:49):
new code breaking method called ban Barismus, which helped to
massively reduce the amount of time codebreakers spent to ciphering
individual messages. Joan was the only woman using ban barismist
lutchly and became quite fascinated with the technique. She would
sometimes linger after her shift was over, unwilling to hand
over her work until she'd tried a few more times
to decipher a message. During her time in HUT eight,

(04:12):
Joan grew very close with Alan Turing, who would often
rearrange their shifts so they could work side by side.
When Alan wrote an explanation of his Enigma theory, he
asked Joan to help him edit it. Eventually he proposed.
Here's Joan talking about their relationship in a BBC Horizon
documentary that aired in nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Tutaney, it was a surprise to me when he said,
I think his words probably were would you consider marrying me? Was?
It was a surprise. I really didn't hesitate and saying yes.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Joan opted not to wear her ring during work hours
so as not to alert their cap But Alan had
another bigger secret. He confessed to Joan that he was gay,
something he had to conceal because of laws criminalizing homosexuality
in Britain at the time. Joan was unfazed by this
revelation and remained open to marriage, but they eventually agreed
to call off their engagement. They remained friends till Alan

(05:19):
passed away in nineteen fifty four. By the summer of
nineteen forty one, the HUT eight team had made major
headway in code breaking as they became more adept at
interpreting the German Navy's messages. The damage to ships carrying
essential supplies to Britain dipped sharply. By late nineteen forty three,
the American code breaking unit took over much of hutt

(05:39):
Eate's work, but Joan remained at HUT eight until the
end of the war. As Britain entered peacetime once more,
Bletchley Park emptied out. The government destroyed evidence of the
covert code breaking operation, and its thousands of workers were
sworn to secrecy. For decades afterwards, many British citizens remained
unaware of the code breaking project that historians speculate shortened

(06:01):
the war by several years. Joan remained a government employee,
working for Bletchley Park's successor agency, the Government Communication Headquarters.
In nineteen fifty two, she married retired army officer JK. R. Murray.
When her husband's health declined, Joan moved to Scotland with him.
There she developed a fascination with Scottish history and numismatics,

(06:22):
the study of currency, and published papers on the topic.
Joan died on September fourth, nineteen ninety six, in Oxfordshire, England.
She was seventy nine years old. By that point, the
details of the Bletchley Park code breaking operation had been declassified,
but Joan's crucial contributions to the project remained unsung until recently.

(06:42):
In twenty fourteen, Kira Knightley played Joan in the film
The Imitation Game.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
My Name's Joan Clark, Miss did you really solve this
puzzle yourself? What makes you think I couldn't solve the
puzzle myself.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
The success of the movie, which was nominated for eight
Academy Awards, helped Joan's story reach a much wider audience,
and in twenty twenty four on the eightieth anniversary of
D Day, a plaque in Joan's memory was unveiled at
her childhood home in South London. All month, We're talking
about Outsiders. For more information, find us on Facebook and
Instagram at Wamanica podcast special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my

(07:19):
favorite sister and co creator. Talk to you tomorrow