Stuart Milner-Barry

{{Short description|British codebreaker, civil servant, and chess player}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}} {{Use British English|date=May 2012}} {{Infobox person | name = Stuart Milner-Barry | image = Stuart_Milner_Barry.jpg | title = *[[Officer of the Order of the British Empire]] *[[Companion of the Order of the Bath]] *[[Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order]] | birth_date = {{Birth date|1906|9|20|df=y}} | death_date = {{Death date and age|1995|3|25|1906|9|20|df=y}} | birth_place = [[Hendon]], London | death_place = [[Lewisham]], London | occupation = Codebreaker, civil servant, chess player }}

'''Sir Philip Stuart Milner-Barry''' {{postnominals|country=GBR|KCVO|CB|OBE}} (20 September 1906 – 25 March 1995) was a British [[chess]] player, chess writer, World War II [[cryptologist]], and [[civil servant]]. He represented England in chess before and after World War II.

During World War II he worked at [[Bletchley Park]], from autumn 1943 heading "[[Hut 6]]", the section responsible for [[decryption|decrypting]] German Army and Air Force messages which had been enciphered on the [[Enigma machine]]. He was one of four leading cryptologists at Bletchley Park to petition then-[[British Prime Minister|Prime Minister]] [[Winston Churchill]] for more resources for their work.

After the war he worked in the [[HM Treasury|Treasury]], and later administered the [[British honours system]]. In chess, he represented England in international tournaments, and lent his name to four [[chess opening|opening]] variations.

==Early life and education== Born in [[Hendon]], London, Philip Stuart was the second of six children to a Professor of German and Teutonic Philology at the University College of North Wales, Edward Leopold Milner-Barry, who died from heart failure in 1917,<ref name="Bangor">{{cite web |title=In memory of the fallen of the University: 1914-1918 |url=https://www.bangor.ac.uk/archives-and-special-collections/in-memory-of-the-fallen-of-the-university-1914-1918 |website=Bangor University |access-date=18 September 2024 |language=en}}</ref> and his wife, Edith Mary.<ref name="odnb">Ralph Erskine, "Barry, Sir (Philip) Stuart Milner- (1906–1995)" in the [[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]], 2004</ref><ref name="times">"Sir Stuart Milner-Barry – Obituary", ''The Times'', 28 March 1995</ref> His grandfather was [[William Besant]], a mathematical fellow of [[St John's College, Cambridge]]. His older sister, [[Alda Milner-Barry]], worked for [[MI1b]] during [[World War One]] and went on to be Professor of German at [[University College Galway]] and vice-principal of [[Newnham College, Cambridge]].<ref name="QoC">{{cite book |last1=Chionna |first1=Jackie Ui |title=The Queen of Codes: The Secret Life of Emily Anderson, Britain's Greatest Female Code Breaker |date=2023 |isbn=9781472295477 |page=43-44|publisher=Headline Publishing }}</ref>

A talented chess player, Milner-Barry won the first British Boys' Championship in 1923.<ref name="indep">William Hartston, [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19950329/ai_n13974120 "Obituary: Sir Stuart Milner-Barry"], [[The Independent]], 29 March 1995</ref> He was a pupil at [[Cheltenham College]], and won a scholarship to [[Trinity College, Cambridge|Trinity College]], [[Cambridge University|Cambridge]], where he obtained firsts in [[classics]] and moral sciences.<ref name="odnb"/> He represented Cambridge in chess. At Cambridge, he befriended another chess player, [[C. H. O'D. Alexander|C.H.O'D. (Hugh) Alexander]], and composed a number of [[chess puzzle]]s.<ref name="chess">William Hartston, [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19950330/ai_n13974265 "Chess"], ''[[The Independent]]'', 30 March 1995</ref> Between 1929 and 1938 he was a city [[stockbroker]], although he was unhappy with the work.<ref name="times"/><ref>Gordon Welchman, ''The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes'', p. 84, first edition 1982; revised edition: M & M Baldwin, December 1997, {{ISBN|0-947712-34-8}}</ref> From 1938, he was the chess correspondent for ''[[The Times]]'', succeeded in 1945 by [[Harry Golombek]].<ref name="odnb"/>

===Early chess contributions=== He made his debut in international-class chess at the strong London 1932 tournament, which World Champion [[Alexander Alekhine]] won. Milner-Barry's best results in international competition were achieved in three straight years at the [[Margate]] tournaments from 1937 to 1939, and at [[Hastings International Chess Congress|Hastings]] 1938. In all four events he finished just above the middle against strong fields, with performance ratings (as calculated by [[Chessmetrics]]) between 2538 and 2565.<ref>http://www.chessmetrics.com {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060414132700/http://www.chessmetrics.com/ |date=14 April 2006 }}, the Milner-Barry player file.</ref> This places him at a solid [[Grandmaster (chess)|Grandmaster]] standard, although he never received this title. He reached as high as No. 65 in the world between June and August 1941, according to Chessmetrics, which ranks historical chess performances retrospectively, using modern algorithms.

He represented England in chess, and played in the international [[Chess Olympiad]]s of [[1937 Chess Olympiad|1937]] and [[1939 Chess Olympiad|1939]]. The latter tournament, held in [[Buenos Aires]], [[Argentina]], coincided with Britain's declaration of war on Germany in September 1939.{{cn|date=January 2025}} Milner-Barry, with teammates who included Hugh Alexander (at that time the [[British chess champion]]) and Harry Golombek, abandoned the tournament unfinished,{{cn|date=January 2025}} and returned to Britain. His full Olympiad results are listed later in the article.

==Bletchley Park== [[File:Hut6.jpg|thumb|280px|The original [[Hut 6]] building (photographed in 2004). Milner-Barry joined Hut 6 in early 1940, and worked in the section throughout World War II. He became head of Hut 6 in Autumn 1943.]] Upon their return, all three soon joined the [[Government Code and Cypher School]] at [[Bletchley Park]]. Milner-Barry was recruited by mathematician [[Gordon Welchman]], who had been his contemporary at Trinity College;<ref name="odnb"/> in turn Milner-Barry recruited [[Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander|Hugh Alexander]].<ref>Stephen Budiansky, ''Battle of Wits'', 2000, p. 137</ref> Arriving in early 1940, he joined Welchman's "[[Hut 6]]" section, whose task was to solve the [[Enigma machine|Enigma cipher machine]] as used by the [[German Army (Wehrmacht)|German Army]] and [[Luftwaffe|Air Force]].<ref name="odnb"/>

In 1993, Milner-Barry wrote that "to this day I could not claim that I fully understood how the machine worked, let alone what was involved in the problems of breaking and reading the Enigma cipher".<ref>Stuart Milner-Barry, "Hut 6: Early days", pp. 89–99 in ''Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park'', edited by F. H. Hinsley, and Alan Stripp, Oxford University Press, 2003</ref> Nonetheless, with his knowledge of the German language, he made a study of the decrypts and found that they contained stereotyped patterns and forms of address that could be exploited as "[[crib (cryptanalysis)|cribs]]" – reliable guesses for the plain language message that matched a given piece of encrypted text.<ref>Welchman, 1982, pp. 98, 110</ref> Finding reliable cribs was a critical task for Hut 6, as Enigma was broken primarily with the aid of "[[bombe]]s", large electromechanical machines which automatically searched for parts of the correct settings. Bombes were reliant on a suitable crib in order to succeed. In autumn 1940, Milner-Barry was put in charge of the "Crib Room".<ref>Welchman, 1982, p. 120</ref>

{{main|Action This Day (memo)}} He was [[billet]]ed with Alexander, who was working in [[Hut 8]], the counterpart to Hut 6 working on German Naval Enigma. Their close friendship let them easily resolve the competing needs of their sections for the limited available [[bombe]] time.<ref>Milner-Barry, 2003, p. 95–96</ref> By October 1941, he was deputy head of Hut 6 under Welchman.<ref name="kahn">David Kahn, ''Seizing the Enigma'', 1991, pp. 186–88</ref> At this time, Bletchley Park was experiencing a shortage of clerical staff which was delaying the work on Enigma, and the management of GCCS appeared unable to obtain the resources needed. This affected both Hut 6 and Hut 8, which was run by mathematician [[Alan Turing]] with Hugh Alexander as his deputy. Together, Welchman, Milner-Barry, Turing and Alexander bypassed the [[chain of command]] and wrote a memorandum directly to the [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]], [[Winston Churchill]], outlining their difficulties.<ref name="kahn"/> It fell to Milner-Barry to deliver the message to [[10 Downing Street]] in person, on 21 October 1941. The next day, Churchill responded, "Action this day: Make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this has been done."<ref>pp. ix–xiii in Ralph Erskine and Michael Smith eds, ''Action this Day'', 2001</ref> Within a month their needs were being met.<ref name="kahn"/>

In autumn 1943, Milner-Barry took over as head of [[Hut 6]], which by that time had grown to over 450&nbsp;staff, Welchman having been appointed the Assistant Director of Mechanisation at Bletchley Park.<ref name="odnb"/><ref>The History of Hut 6, Volume I, [[The National Archives (UK)|PRO]] HW 43/70, September 1945, p. 12</ref> He remained in charge until the end of the war, presiding over a number of technical challenges presented by the introduction of extra security devices to the German Enigma, including the [[Enigma machine#Accessories|Enigma Uhr]] and a rewireable [[Enigma machine#Reflector|"reflector" rotor]].<ref name="odnb"/> His entry in the [[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]] notes that, "although he increasingly felt that Hut 6 was on the verge of losing the ability to decode Enigma, it held on until the end of the war, and this was due in no small part to his gifted leadership."<ref name="odnb"/> The official history of Hut 6, written immediately after the end of World War II, comments on his early "most vital technical achievement" in finding cribs, and on his "administrative and diplomatic talents" in his later role as head of the section.<ref>History of Hut 6, 1945, pp. 27–28</ref>

==After World War II== Milner-Barry joined the [[Treasury]] in 1945 with the grade of [[Principal (civil service)|Principal]]. In 1947, he married Thelma Tennant Wells, with whom he had a son and two daughters.<ref name="odnb"/> The same year, he was promoted to [[Assistant Secretary]], and [[Under-secretary]] in 1954.<ref name="indep"/> Apart from a stint in the [[Department of Health (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Health]] from 1958 to 1960,<ref name="indep"/> he remained with the Treasury until 1966, when, aged 60, he had reached the then normal retirement age for the civil service.<ref name="times"/> He was persuaded instead to carry on as a ceremonial officer administering the [[British honours system|honours system]]. In this role, he supported the [[knighthood]]s of [[P. G. Wodehouse]] and [[Noël Coward]].<ref>Alan Hamilton, "Bertie Wooster messed it up for his creator", [[The Times]], 16 August 2002</ref> Milner-Barry eventually retired in 1977.<ref name="indep"/> He was appointed [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]] in 1946 for his work in World War II, [[Order of the Bath|CB]] in 1962, and [[Royal Victorian Order|KCVO]] in 1975.<ref name="odnb"/>

==Later chess contributions== {{AN chess|pos=secright}} He had also continued to play chess, competing in the [[10th Chess Olympiad]] and [[12th Chess Olympiad]] in 1952 and 1956. The 1956 Olympiad trip to Moscow was risky, since Britain and the [[USSR]], which had been allies during World War II, were by then locked into the [[Cold War]], and Milner-Barry's wartime codebreaking knowledge would have been of great interest to the Soviets; the very fact that Britain had broken German codes on a massive scale was kept secret until 1974, when [[Frederick Winterbotham]]'s book ''The Ultra Secret'' was published. He placed second in the British Chess Championship at Hastings 1953 (finishing behind only [[Daniel Yanofsky]]), with a score of 8/11; this would be his best result in British Championships.<ref>http://www.chessmetrics.com {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060414132700/http://www.chessmetrics.com/ |date=14 April 2006 }}, the Milner-Barry player file</ref>

He was president of the [[British Chess Federation]] between 1970 and 1973, competed in the British Championship as late as 1978,<ref name="indep"/> and was still competing in club and county-level tournaments and matches into his 80s.<ref name="chess"/> His obituary in ''[[The Independent]]'' recalled his "savagely effective attacking style, honed to perfection through a series of 'serious friendly games' against his old rival Hugh Alexander".<ref name="indep"/> In 1972, [[George Koltanowski]] wrote that, "his style was very pleasing to spectators because he was always looking for dangerous continuations and quite often he found them!"<ref>George Koltanowski, ''With the Chess Masters'', Falcon, 1972</ref> His name is associated with four [[chess opening]] variations: {{Chess diagram small |floatright |Nimzo-Indian Defence <br />Milner-Barry Variation |rd| |bd|qd|kd| | |rd |pd|pd|pd|pd| |pd|pd|pd | | |nd| |pd|nd| | | | | | | | | | | |bd|pl|pl| | | | | | |nl| | | | | |pl|pl|ql| |pl|pl|pl|pl |rl| |bl| |kl|bl|nl|rl |1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 Nc6 }} * [[Nimzo-Indian Defence#Classical Variation|Milner-Barry Variation]] of the [[Nimzo-Indian Defence]] (''[[Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings|ECO]]'' E33): 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 Nc6 * Milner-Barry Gambit in the [[French Defence]] (''ECO'' C02): 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Bd3 cxd4 7.cxd4 Bd7 8.0-0!? Nxd4 9.Nxd4 Qxd4 10.Nc3<ref name="indep"/> * Milner-Barry Variation in the [[Petroff Defence]] (''ECO'' C42): 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Qe2 Qe7 6.d3 Nf6 7.Bg5 Nbd7 * Milner-Barry Variation in the [[King's Gambit]] (''ECO'' C31): 1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.Nc3

===Olympiad results=== Milner-Barry's detailed results while competing for England in chess Olympiads are as follows: * [[7th Chess Olympiad|Stockholm 1937]]: board 3, 3/9 (+2−5=2) * [[8th Chess Olympiad|Buenos Aires 1939]]: board 3, 4/5 (+3−0=2) * [[10th Chess Olympiad|Helsinki 1952]]: board 3, 5½/12 (+2−3=7) * [[12th Chess Olympiad|Moscow 1956]]: board 4, 6/12 (+5−5=2) Overall, he scored (+12−13=13), 18½/38, for 48.7 per cent.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.olimpbase.org/players/hrvhhxfr.html|title=OlimpBase: Men's Chess Olympiads: Philip Stuart Milner-Barry|last=Bartelski|first=Wojciech|publisher=OlimpBase|access-date=20 October 2010}}</ref>

==Final years== In 1985, Milner-Barry fiercely defended the reputation of Gordon Welchman, who had come under posthumous criticism for publishing details about the wartime work of Hut 6.<ref name="times"/> In 1992, echoing his wartime visit to 10 Downing Street, Milner-Barry was a member of a party who delivered a petition to the Prime Minister calling on the government to help preserve Bletchley Park, which was then under threat from demolition.<ref>Ted Enever, ''Britain's Best Kept Secret'', 2000, {{ISBN|0-7509-2355-5}}, pp. 84-85</ref>

He died on 25 March 1995 in [[Lewisham Hospital]], London.<ref name="odnb"/> A [[funeral|memorial service]] was held for him at [[Westminster Abbey]] on 15 June.<ref>"Sir Stuart Milner-Barry – Memorial service", [[The Times]], 16 June 1995</ref>

There is a conference room named after him<ref name=”Quinlan”> {{cite web | url=https://civilserviceclub.org.uk/getmedia/d810440b-1493-493d-8308-ac88ca573b9c/147542_Civil_Service_Club_History_Book.aspx | title=A Brief History of the Civil Service Club, Great Scotland Yard, Whitehall |access-date=29 January 2024}}. London: Civil Service Club {{ISBN|978-1-5272-6019-1}}</ref> at the [[Civil Service Club]], 13 – 15 Great Scotland Yard, London SW1A 2HJ.

==References== {{reflist|30em}}

==External links== * [https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/9/resources/1722 The Papers of Sir (Philip) Stuart Milner-Barry] held at [[Churchill Archives Centre]] * {{chessgames player|id=13278|name=Philip Stuart Milner-Barry}} * [http://www.chessvibes.com/?p=248&lp_lang_pref=nl/feed/feed/feed/feed/feed/ Milner-Barry and his Attack] * [http://www.westlondonchess.com/history/gazette_051.pdf West London Chess Club Gazette February 1946]{{dead link|date=January 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} (PDF) * [https://britishchessnews.com/2020/03/25/remembering-sir-philip-stuart-milner-barry-obe-20-ix-1906-25-iii-1995/ Remembering Sir Stuart Milner-Barry]

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