IP: Tommy Flowers, of Colossus fame

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

X-Sender: nbr () popin newcastle ac uk
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:01:37 +0000
To: cs-all () newcastle ac uk, farber () cis upenn edu, shothc-l () sivm si edu
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk>
Subject: Tommy Flowers, of Colossus fame

It is with much regret that I pass on the news, just received in a
telephone call from his son Kenneth, that Tommy Flowers, chief designer of
the Colossus, the electronic computer built in 1943 at the Post Office's
Dollis Hill Research Station, for breaking German teleprinter ciphers at
Bletchley Park, died last Wednesday.

There was I understand an announcement in the Daily Telegraph last
Saturday, and there will be one on The Guardian tomorrow. The funeral will
be next Monday at 2pm at Hendon Crematorium - family flowers only,
donations to Cancer Relief.

Tommy Flowers was the most brilliant engineer and one of the nicest people
that I have ever known. I count it as a great privilege that I was able to
play a part, back in 1980, in helping to ensure that his immense
contribution to the work of Bletchley Park, and hence to the whole conduct
of World War II, at last started to receive public recognition.

In the following years I met Tommy and his delightful wife on a number of
further occasions - one of the most moving being at the official
inauguration of the rebuilt Colossus at Bletchley Park on June 6 1996, a
very fitting day given the contribution that the original machine made to
the preparations for the Allied Landings in Normandy on D-Day.

Brian Randell


Dept. of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/