US IT firms donate £57,000 to help Bletchley

The Americans have stepped in to help the campaign to save Bletchley Park.

IT firms the PGP Corporation and IBM have donated $100,000 (£57,000) to the National Museum of Computing (NMC) at Bletchley Park.

The two companies said they not only feel a moral duty to help but hope that by doing so it will help highlight Bletchley’s plight. This in turn will encourage other companies in the technical community worldwide to get involved and make donations.

These would not only save the NMC but the rest of Bletchley Park; home of the UK’s code-breaking efforts that helped this country to win the Second World and led to the birth of modern computing

Phil Dunkelberger, chief executive officer of PGP Corporation, said: “The international computer community owes a huge debt to Bletchley Park; the ideas, the concepts and the people who worked here.

"It was the first step to Silicon Valley. To paraphrase Winston Churchill; 'Never has so much been owed by so many to so few’. We cannot take it for granted,” he told us.

Kevin Murrell, trustee and director of the NMC said the PGP/IBM donation will help open the next stage of the museum, which opened in August this year.

“We have knocked down some walls built in the 1960s in Block H, which gives us the space for exhibits showing the development of personal computers,” he said.

But however welcome this donation is, it is only the start of what is needed to save not only the NMC but the rest of Bletchley Park.

It is estimated that £7 million is needed to run the museum, which houses the largest collection of functional historic computers in Europe, including a fully rebuilt Colossus computer; considered by most people to be the world’s first computer proper.

In addition, it is estimated a further £10 million is needed to restore and maintain the rest of Bletchley Park; including the historic buildings used by code breakers and Alan Turing during WWII.

Neither the main park and historic buildings nor the NMC receive Government funding. Despite increasing public concern about the state of disrepair and the urgent need for financial help, last month the Government washed its hands of the situation.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport told us that while it recognised the “excellent work carried out at Bletchley Park, as well as its historical significance”, it “has no plans to extend the department's sponsorship of museums and galleries beyond the present number”.

This has left Bletchley, which serves as a museum and educational centre, with the NMC, reliant on visitor income and donations, so important historic buildings are in a state of serious disrepair.

But as Andrew Hart, UK security and privacy services leader of IBM said: “The collection at the museum brings to life the origins of much of what we depend upon in modern life today, and we recognise there is a need here.”

PGP and IBM have set up a website so that the technical communities around the world can make donations. They said it was already generating a great deal of interest from the technical world.

Members of the public can show their support by signing the petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website. They can also make donations on the Bletchley Park website or pay a personal visit. An annual ticket costs only £10.