Bletchley Park Facing Financial Ruin

biscuitfever11 writes "Bletchley Park, the home of Station X, Britain's secret code-breaking base during World War II, is barely scraping by financially, as shown in these images compiled by ZDNet this week. The site has undergone major redevelopment as an act of remembrance for the Allied efforts to break the German Enigma code, but now its future is clouded — among others, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation turned them down for financial assistance (since it doesn't have to do with the Internet). Its director estimates that Bletchley Park's funds will be exhausted in three years. Hungry land developers are circling. This is an insightful look at what's happened to Bletchley Park these days and the pain it's going through."

Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

These aren't starving kids in Africa, for crying out loud. It's just a museum. And, however important the historical significance of the site, it's hardly fair to make a snide remark about not getting funding from a foundation that has MUCH more important issues to deal with. If anything, they should be getting funding from the British government (and obviously THEY don't think it's so important).

I know this is /., and there is many a Bill-basher here who would probably take ANY opportunity to blast him, but COME ON.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

Yea! Let the Brits destroy their heritage like we do in the US. Tear it down and put a parking lot on it, that's what I say.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

ugh, what-ever.
every single inch of soil has some history to it.
If you really think saving this place is worth time and effort, please donate some of your money.

My guess is not many people feel like you do.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

Kids in Africa are starving for reasons the Gates Foundation can't fix.

That written, I view the demise of Bletchley Park the same way I look at copyrights: Doing something great a long time ago shouldn't guarantee you a lifetime of financial benefits. Even if you saved the world.

Great you broke codes but a long time has passed since then. Figure out how to pay your own way.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

That written, I view the demise of Bletchley Park the same way I look at copyrights: Doing something great a long time ago shouldn't guarantee you a lifetime of financial benefits

Your comparing efforts to save an important part of our history to copyrights?

Figure out how to pay your own way.

Am I the only one that sees value in preserving important parts of our history for future generations?

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

But what does preserving the history mean? In a case like this, the history is extremely well documented. Not only that, but the value of the site itself lies solely in the fact that it IS well documented. The building and grounds are not inherently historically valuable.

When you talk about preserving a site like this it's not the same way you would talk about preserving an area of Greek or Roman ruins. It's not like they are going to excavate it at a later date and discover unknown relics.

Without the knowledge of what has happened there, the site is meaningless. And if you have the documentation the site becomes more about the emotional and symbolic attachment than historical value.

And eventually it gets down to the fact that if we faithfully preserved every place that anything interesting had ever happened at it wouldn't be long before our entire society would be static.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

Yeah. My initial question here was "Why doesn't the government step in?" What, does England have so much history that it doesn't see the value of protecting a historic site that's from something as new as the last century?

Here in the states, we've got the NSA cryptologic museum [nsa.gov], where among other things you can tool around on an old Enigma from WWII. Can't imagine why Britain wouldn't want something like it.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

What, does England have so much history that it doesn't see the value of protecting a historic site that's from something as new as the last century?

We do have an awful lot of history. Near where I grew up is a 13th century castle, and a little further a copy of the Magna Carta from 1215. The town itself was founded in 888. Yes, without a 1 in front. Throw in lots of roman stuff, and things I've never even been told of, and yeah, something from 1945 might not be thought to be really that *wow*.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

The British Government decided quite a while ago to get rid of any responsibility it had for looking after any of our historic buildings. Instead they set up the National Lottery to directly tax poor and stupid people with a remit to help good causes such as this one.

Even before that though most of these things are maintained ( or not ) by organisations such as the National Trust or museums and charitable organisations. I can't think of a single thing such as this building which is directly supported by the government, it's just something that in the UK has never been up to the government but is left to private individuals or charitable organisations to deal with. In general the government through it's local councils have no interest at all in maintaining any of our more historic buildings being quite happy instead to let them stand around empty for decades until they have rotted sufficiently to be knocked down and redeveloped. All most all of Birminghams historic Edwardian public baths are currently suffering from this treatment.

There was recently a BBC programme which allowed viewers to vote on which one of a dozen or so worthy historic buildings was given money for maintenance whilst letting the rest continue to fall into disrepair. Britains long range Vulcan bomber is being preserved and renovated by a private group of enthusiasts and BA are refusing to sell Concorde to a similar group of enthusiasts for preservation so in general here in the UK what is preserved and what is not is more or less a random lottery with many things falling by the wayside and being crushed underfoot.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

While its funding is not great, English Heritage protects hundreds of historic buildings and other heritage sites. They're a government-funded quango, attached to the DCMS. There are equivalents in Wales and Scotland.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

If the government won't spare the money to protect Stonehenge of all places, it's unsurprising that other stuff is neglected too.

Re:Why would they expect Gates Foundation funding?

What, does England have so much history that it doesn't see the value of protecting a historic site that's from something as new as the last century?

Yep, that's pretty much it. There's only so much funding to go around, and there are thousands and thousands of sites of historical interest competing for it. Bletchley isn't really such a strong competitor; the site itself is of no architectural interest, it's nothing to look at. All it ever was was a bunch of army huts. There are ancient castles and manors falling down which are much more photogenic and attract more tourists.

To me Bletchley is of more intellectual than historic interest: it's where Turing did his work founding the discipline of computer science. As such, I wonder if the best way forward would be for the site to become a technology park, or a research centre attached perhaps to the OU? That would preserve what was important there - the intellectual tradition - even if it meant doing away with most of the WW2-era buildings.

Barely scraping by?

Even the "run down" pictures look better than my working conditions.

The British did not break Enigma

Enigma was broken by a Polish cryptographer named Marian Rejewski [wikipedia.org]. The Poles knew they were going to be overrun by the Germans and disclosed their work to the French and British.

Bletchley Park is where they automated the process of intercepting, decrypting, translating, and analyzing Axis communications. I can't think of any large-scale SIGINT operation that preceded Bletchley, and it was certainly vital to the war effort, but credit where it's due, etc.

Re:The British did not break Enigma

Great article on the history of Enigma:

http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00016.cfm [nsa.gov]

Re:The British did not break Enigma

Enigma was broken by a Polish cryptographer named Marian Rejewski [wikipedia.org].

IIRC, enigma was initially broken as you say, but that technique relied on the German army's flawed protocol of sending two encrypted copies of the same 3 letters (that formed the session key) at the start of each transmission. They soon realised that this was a security weakness and so Bletchley park had to develop new techniques. The German navy used a much tougher system again.

If you read TFA

Make sure you go through the pictures as well, each one has a long and interesting caption.

This is truly sad

The work that the code breakers at Bletchley park did prevented a lot of Ally deaths. When the Germans instituted using the 4-wheel enigma it was impossible to tell what the U-boats were doing out in the Atlantic Ocean. Because of this, supply boats going to the U.K. were being sunk at a high rate, unable to avoid the U-boats, eventually the Brits could have been forced out of the battle (no war supplies == no war). Near the end of 1942 however, some documented daily settings on the new 4-wheel enigma were pulled off of a sunken U-boat in the Mediterranean [codesandciphers.org.uk] allowing german naval deciphers to be broken. Through the man-power, knowledge, and tools available at Bletchley, they could decipher and relay german naval messages (at least in the Atlantic) to high command often within hours of obtaining them. After this, supply ships in the Atlantic were nearly invisible to German U-boats. The monthly settings booklets still had to be retrieved to continue this, but through missions and sometimes luck most of them were captured

That's the WWII side of the story (or at least a very small part of it).

The importance to /. is probably that this war was the first time machines were used to cipher messages, and thus machines had to do the deciphering. To break the regular ground enigma's daily settings scientists at Bletchley designed and manufactured the Colossus(es) [wikipedia.org]. If you ever see this thing run, especially the interior mechanisms, you'll know this was a great unknown leap towards multi-purpose computing machinery. Unfortunately because of U.K. laws, the work and knowledge of those at Bletchley couldn't be released until sometime in the 80's (I think)

Disgusted

As a UK citizen I'm pretty disgusted that a lot of our landmarks and history, as well as worthwhile projects such as revived steam railway lines and 'sense' centres for severely disabled kids with people putting their own volunteer time in, are somehow getting turn down for National Lottery funding (there never is a solid reason given) and billions are being given to the waste of time and money that is the Olympics, largely because of corruption. Who's going to miss a few million going missing here and there? These are schemes and projects that only want a few tens or hundreds of thousands pounds as well.

This is exactly the sort of thing that the National Lottery was supposed to help, and exactly the sort of thing that has been let down.

No exaggeration

I was there a few years ago. Some of the exhibits were in WW2 vintage barracks (i.e. temporary buildings never meant to stand for more than 5 years, let alone 50. In one hut, there were puddles on the floor. The whole place is falling apart.

As for the argument 'you can always move the exhibits to the Science Museum and sell the land': The exhibits are important, but the accomodations themselves make a point that's worth remembering as well. The most vital project of the entire war was being run out of a collection of sheds, basically. To think that 9000 people worked there on the most advanced technology in existence back then, boggles the mind.

Turn it into a Historic bldg or Museum

Now perhaps I'm over-associating the Bletchley work. But I'd have to think, that at the very least, this is a "Good Cause" to support. But I believe a museum designation is long-overdue for Bletchley - or a Heritage building which must be preserved. A statue of some of the fine men and women who worked there might draw people's attention to their efforts. I think its because the people at Bletchley weren't soldiers that they haven't garnered public attention or praise which is why Bletchley remains in the condition its in. Its a sad reality when the artsy fartsies are the first one to always get new museums or funding for museums. And indeed, they're the ones who fight for buildings to be preserved for Historic reasons. Where are they in this case? These would have been the last people to pickup a rifle in WWII.

Members of the public probably don't know or understand (e.g. lack of knowledge of the military) the contributions at Bletchley. I'm not one to usually fight for heritage properties or a museum. But for goodness sake, the worked they did helped destroy countless U-boats (my Canadian grandfather worked on shipping lines crossing the Atlantic risking his neck each time he crossed and so many perished because of the U-Boats), helped gather countless intel on German operations, helped confirm the D-Day operation date and continued to spy on the Germans (just to make sure they weren't up to anything) after WWII. It saved the lives of countless Army, Air and Navy men and women of all nationalities that served in WWII on the European front. And, indirectly, because of this work, it helped put a stop to the Concentration Camps.

Why the hell are they not getting the due respect and attention that they so rightly desire? This is a disgrace. Were I British, I would be fighting for the preservation of this building. I'm not sure that as a Canadian, my words will count for much.

Re:Upstairs boarder

when I go into the bathroom, I'm American.

You should see a doctor about that.

Re:Upstairs boarder

And when you're in the bathroom? European.

Re:The real problem

we wantonly ignore our history because we actually have lots and lots of it, mate.

when you are tripping over history with every other step you take then you'll get pretty relaxed about it as well.

having said that, it make me weep when a properly constructed 150+ year old house get ripped down for a cramped development of flats made from bricks, spit and twigs. it is precisely because of the sheer amount of historical relevance and interest that naturally some things get sacrificed, and once its gone then its gone for ever.

face it, as a attraction Bletchley has to compete with central london only 25 miles away - and when you put it like that it will always lose.

Re:Lottery funding

For the benefit of those not in the UK, the National Lottery is where you buy a ticket for £1 and choose six numbers. If the numbers you pick come up - then you win a load of cash.

We have two organizations like this in the US:

The first is called Powerball - runs in many (not all states), and does almost the same thing... only costs a buck and a hope. The profits are divided among participating states and put towards public works projects (e.g. roads, schools, parks...)

The other one is called NASDAQ, though Lord only knows where the profits end up.

/P