Taylor Leach

Elonka Dunin

Klaus Schmeh

British polar researcher Richard Collinson and his encrypted communication

The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) is home to the world's largest collection of working historic computers.Follow the development of computing: from the Turing-Welchman Bombe and Colossus of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, to the rise of personal computing and the rise of mobile computing and the internet.Recognised as one of England’s top 100 ‘irreplaceable places’, we welcome corporate and group visits, schools and individuals from all over the world.We are normally open Tuesday to Friday 10:30 -17:00, Saturday & Sunday 10:30 – 17:00. Please check tickets for actual opening days and times.TNMOC operates independently of Bletchley Park Trust, although we are located on the Bletchley Park Estate.To visit us, go through the main Bletchley Park entrance, through the barrier, walk or drive bearing left beyond the main car parks, to our separate entrance located at the top of the Park.Visit their website here for more information.https://www.tnmoc.org/Sat Nav users: please use the postcode for the railway station MK3 6DS on Sherwood Drive and then follow signs. The postcode for Bletchley Park will actually take you to an old entrance which is closed.

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The talk covers a little known but very interesting episode in British naval history.

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<h3>About the online event </h3>Between 1850 and 1855, the London-based newspaper The Times published over 50encrypted advertisements apparently intended for the same recipient. As we know today,the ads in that series were meant for the sea captain Richard Collinson, who at the timewas on a mission in the Canadian Arctic trying to solve the mystery of the lost JohnFranklin expedition. Before Collinson’s departure, his family was taught how to encryptbrief reports about what was going on at home and to publish these messages asencrypted ads in The Times once a month. The cipher used was based on a signal-bookof the Royal Navy. As the circulation of The Times stretched far beyond the UK, Collinsonwould have the chance to get his hands on a copy even at the remotest of ports.The Collinson ads were finally broken in the 1990s. The lecturers of this talk are membersof a project aiming to decrypt all of Collinson’s ads and to place them in their geographicand cultural context.