Jane Hughes Fawcett
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Jane Fawcett
MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...
(née Hughes; 4 March 1921 – 21 May 2016) was a British
codebreaker Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic se ...
, singer, and heritage preservationist. She recently became known for her role in decoding a message, which led to the sinking of the German battleship ''Bismarck''. From 1963 to 1976 she served as the secretary of the Victorian Society. She wrote and edited works including ''The Future of the Past; Seven Victorian Architects; The Village in History'' and ''Save the City''.


Early life

Janet Carolin (or Caroline) Hughes was born on 4 March 1921. She was raised in London, attended
Miss Ironside's School for Girls Miss Ironside's School (also called Miss Ironside's Day School and Miss Ironside's School For Girls) was a school at 2 Elvaston Place, in Kensington. The journalist John Walsh, writing in ''The Daily Telegraph'', called it "legendary". Notable al ...
in
Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
, trained as a ballet dancer, and was admitted to the Royal Ballet School. As a young woman of 17, she was told she was "too tall" to be a professional dancer, and her promising ballet career ended. She was then sent to Zürich to learn German, shortly thereafter moving to the St Moritz ski resort. After six months, she was told by her parents to return home to "come out" as a
debutante A debutante, also spelled débutante, ( ; from french: débutante , "female beginner") or deb is a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who has reached maturity and, as a new adult, is presented to society at a formal " ...
. She found that lifestyle boring, "a complete waste of time" and was relieved when invited by a friend to apply to the Bletchley Park project.


Wartime service

In 1940, at the age of 18, she was interviewed by senior
codebreaker Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic se ...
Stuart Milner-Barry, and joined the secret codebreaking project at Bletchley Park. She joined a group of women known as the "Debs of Bletchley Park", so called because they were women recruited from upper classes, debutantes, to work in secret as part of the Enigma project. Hughes was assigned to Hut 6, a "Decoding Room" of women only. The conditions were poor—dimly lit, poorly heated, and poorly ventilated—and the women worked long hours under extreme pressure. In Hut 6, Jane and other women like her would receive the daily Enigma keys and type them into their own Typex machines. They would then determine if the messages were recognizable German. On 25 May 1941, Hughes and several other women were briefed on the search for the German battleship ''Bismarck''. Shortly thereafter, she decoded a message referring to the ''Bismarck'' that detailed its current position and destination in France. The ''Bismarck'' was subsequently attacked by the Royal Navy and sunk on 27 May. This was the first significant victory by the codebreakers, demonstrating the utility of the project. Her work did not come to light until decades later, during the 1990s, as it had been classified under Britain's
Official Secrets Act An Official Secrets Act (OSA) is legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security but in unrevised form (based on the UK Official Secrets Act 1911) can include all infor ...
. Compared with the publicly acknowledged heroics of the navy, Fawcett said "we felt slightly ashamed of having only done Bletchley, like also-rans. So when everything we had done, which we knew had been very hard work and incredibly demanding, suddenly showed its head and we were being asked to talk about it, it felt quite overwhelming. I'd never told a soul, not even my husband. My grandchildren were very surprised." Fawcett was one of the human sources Michael Smith interviewed for his book, ''The Debs of Bletchley Park and Other Stories'' (2015).


Singing career

Hughes' service at Bletchley ended in May 1945. After the war ended, she married Edward Fawcett, took his surname, and trained at the
Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...
. From the end of the war to the early 1960s, she had a 15-year career as an opera singer. She performed
Scylla In Greek mythology, Scylla), is obsolete. ( ; grc-gre, Σκύλλα, Skúlla, ) is a legendary monster who lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart Charybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's r ...
in Jean-Marie Leclair's '' Scylla et Glaucus'' and the Sorceress in
Henry Purcell Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest E ...
's '' Dido and Aeneas''. She also performed as a solo recital singer.


Architectural preservation

In 1963 Fawcett took an executive position with the Victorian Society, founded in 1957 as a heritage preservation organisation dedicated to preserving Victorian architecture and works. As its secretary, she was effectively the chief executive, working closely with the director, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, to save many buildings from demolition. She was dubbed "the furious Mrs Fawcett" for her role in fighting with
British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...
to preserve historic railway stations, and was instrumental in the 1967 preservation of St Pancras station in London and the gothic Midland Grand Hotel. She also worked to save much of London's Whitehall from destruction. Her husband joined her in historic preservation work in 1965, joining first the
Garden History Society The Garden History Society was an organisation in the United Kingdom established to study the history of gardening and to protect historic gardens. In 2015 it became The Gardens Trust, having merged with the Association of Gardens Trusts. It was f ...
, and then, in 1969, the National Trust in full-time work. In 1976 Jane Fawcett was appointed
MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...
and stepped down from active leadership. In later years she taught preservation at the
Architectural Association School of Architecture The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest Independent school (United Kingdom), independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in t ...
.


Personal life and death

Hughes met Royal Navy officer Edward "Ted" Fawcett (22 September 1920 – 19 October 2013) during World War II and married him shortly thereafter. The couple had two children, Carolin, an opera singer, and James, an experimental neurologist. Fawcett died at home in Oxford on 21 May 2016 at the age of 95.


Awards and recognition

*
MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...
(Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 1976 * Honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 1976


References


Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fawcett, Jane 20th-century British women opera singers 1921 births 2016 deaths Historical preservationists British cryptographers Bletchley Park women Members of the Order of the British Empire Burials at St Peter's, Petersham British expatriates in Switzerland Bletchley Park people