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<p>The "forgotten hero" trope is interesting. It's a good media
hook, and it doesn't obey common logic. Very often, publicising a
"forgotten hero" doesn't force a revision of the perceived
forgotten-ness, but actually intensifies it. </p>
<p>This effect can't go on indefinitely, but its limits are only
occasionally reached: Alan Turing is an example. Since <i>The Imitation
Game</i> came out in 2014, the narrative "once forgotten, now
recognised" has become dominant. Yet I remember there were still
"forgotten" narratives appearing as late as the centenary
commemorations in 2012, at which point Turing was already one of
the most famous scientific figures in history. </p>
<p>Tommy Flowers, who was honoured in his lifetime and has received
about as many formal tributes and commemorations as any other
important innovator in his home country, looks set to remain one
of the famous forgotten. It's not a case of being known to
specialists but not the general public: he makes a good public
hero, fitting the narrative of skilled working man made good that
was laid down in Dava Sobel's <i>Longitude</i>, and it's usually
for general audiences that his significance is being newly
discovered at any given date. </p>
<p>Notably, he was – alongside Bill Tutte, likewise a permanent
revelation – the subject of a 2011 BBC documentary on "<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://clp.bbcrewind.co.uk/7fd3fb55e462db0867b183729c5ed27c">Bletchley
Park's Lost Heroes</a>". <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/webarchive/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fblogs%2Ftv%2F2011%2F10%2Fww2-documentaries-agent-zigzag-dambusters.shtml">The
comment here (#17)</a> from a 2011 viewer describing it as "a
better-late-than-never tribute" sums up the general air of a
historical wrong finally righted. </p>
<p>The odd thing is that <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/12/move-over-alan-turing-meet-the-working-class-hero-of-bletchley-park-you-didnt-see-in-the-movies">the
new piece by Andrew Smith</a> that re-rights this wrong is, for
most of its length, relatively attentive to the scale and
complexity of the project and the inappropriateness of "lone hero"
judgments. With two or three exceptions, the problematic framing
is confined to the first two paragraphs – though these, of course,
are what prime the reader's response. It sometimes feels like the
"forgotten hero" hook is a tax writers pay in order to be allowed
to deliver the detail. </p>
<p>I was interested to see <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/17/the-teamwork-behind-bletchley-parks-colossus-computer">a
letter from Jonathan Michie</a>, son of Donald, responding to
Smith's piece. He points out – as is also clear from the piece
shared by Morten – that Flowers himself framed innovation as a
group and incremental effort, and ties this understanding to a
defence of broad humanistic education against the "relevant skills
only" approach, which certainly relies on the assumption that
heroic innovators Just Are. </p>
<p>Best<br>
James</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 20/10/2025 21:08, Morten Bay via
Members wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:35b3b357-ed4f-4695-ac69-68d0f72cbb35@Spark">
<title></title>
<div name="messageBodySection">
<div><span style="font-size:16px;">Just adding this to Thomas's
list, in case someone less steeped in this particular
history joins later and wants even more sources. </span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><span style="font-size:16px;">Here are Flowers' own words
on the subject from 1983 (IEEE is down right now, likely due
to the AWS outage):</span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/5488650/4640706/04640709.pdf__;!!PDiH4ENfjr2_Jw!F21idSc2gdmfspE5FUyXNBtNdMu6hQ9KxNbtJxC-ECLoGEJlX3Egazh8hrGW9kIuet3tm7k59XA0JX6ItvIxfGK2FNF-QQ$" moz-do-not-send="true">https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/5488650/4640706/04640709.pdf
[ieeexplore.ieee.org]</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>/Morten </div>
</div>
<div name="messageSignatureSection"><br>
<div style="margin-left:0in;"><span style="color:rgb(159,0,0);font-size:20px;"><font style="font-family:Times New Roman;">Morten Bay, Ph.D.</font> </span>
<span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:10pt;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-left:0in;"><span style="color:rgb(127,127,127);"><font style="font-family:Times New Roman;">Lecturer </font></span></div>
<div style="margin-left:0in;"><span style="color:rgb(127,127,127);"><font style="font-family:Times New Roman;">Research fellow,
Center for the Digital Future </font></span></div>
<div style="margin-left:0in;"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:16px;"><font style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span>Annenberg
School for Communication and Journalism</span></font></span></div>
<div style="margin-left:0in;"><span style="color:rgb(159,0,0);font-size:18px;"><font style="font-family:Times New Roman;">University of
Southern California</font></span></div>
</div>
<div name="messageReplySection">On Oct 20, 2025 at 12:56 PM -0700,
thomas.haigh--- via Members <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:members@lists.sigcis.org"><members@lists.sigcis.org></a>,
wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
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The Guardian piece is nicely written, but I sighed a little
to see another retelling of the story that adds nothing new.
There’s also something ironic in attempting to challenge the
long genius myth of Turing by squeezing Flowers himself into</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal">The Guardian piece is nicely written,
but I sighed a little to see another retelling of the
story that adds nothing new. There’s also something ironic
in attempting to challenge the long genius myth of Turing
by squeezing Flowers himself into the lone genius
narrative template as “the real father of computing.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So as a PSA for the work I did a few
years ago with Mark Priestley on this topic, those looking
to learn more might consult:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="m-6578521092027700104msolistparagraph" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
<i>Contextualizing Colossus</i>. That’s the
organizational side of the story in <i>
Technology & Culture</i>, based in the archival
materials, focused on the relationship between Bletchley
Park and Dollis Hill. The clearest effort to pull back
from individuals to look at this as an institutional
relationship.
<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://muse.jhu.edu/article/763592__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSh8elCch$" moz-do-not-send="true">
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/763592</a></li>
<li class="m-6578521092027700104msolistparagraph" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
<i>Colossus and Programmability</i>. From <i>IEEE
Annals</i>, this one digs in to the questions of
whether Colossus was programmable and whether it was a
computer. There’s a British stamp that says it was both,
but we conclude it was neither. But we couldn’t find an
existing definition of “programmable” so we had to
grapple with what that even meant at the time.
<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2018/04/08509146/17D45WgziNe__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSgt11rdJ$" moz-do-not-send="true">
https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2018/04/08509146/17D45WgziNe</a></li>
<li class="m-6578521092027700104msolistparagraph" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
Tommy Flowers biography from <i>IEEE Annals</i>. <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8356180__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSlAYKXzT$" moz-do-not-send="true">
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8356180</a></li>
<li class="m-6578521092027700104msolistparagraph" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
<i>Colossus Genius: Tutte, Flowers, and a Bad Imitation
of Turing</i>. One of the my CACM contributions,
written in a more general way and also taking aim at the
Imitation Game movie.
<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3018994__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqStUPVAWp$" moz-do-not-send="true">
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3018994</a></li>
<li class="m-6578521092027700104msolistparagraph" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
Colossus the Missing Manual. That’s the technical report
with the in-depth description of the Colossus
architecture, its sequence of operations and what all
the controls did. There are also several documented
Colossus configurations.
<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mediarep.org/entities/book/f1548ef2-2420-4c93-9b09-4fadcc847bd3__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSvHmb_I4$" moz-do-not-send="true">
https://mediarep.org/entities/book/f1548ef2-2420-4c93-9b09-4fadcc847bd3</a></li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps unsurprisingly the world mostly
shrugged at these and went on with the ritual retelling of
the story of snubbed genius. It was nice, though, making
my first visit to Bletchley Park earlier this year to have
the chance to introduce myself to the volunteer Colossus
operators who turned out to have been making extensive use
of the Missing Manual. Rather a specialized audience, but
a committed one!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Best wishes,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tom</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Thomas Haigh</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Professor
& Chair, UWM History Department</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Chair, IEEE
Computer Society History Committee</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Director, ACM
History Committee Turing Awards Project</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">See more at <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSgRgMYXa$" moz-do-not-send="true">
<span style="color:#467886">www.tomandmaria.com/Tom</span></a></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b>
<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Members
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org"><members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org></a>
<b>On Behalf Of</b> Dag Spicer via Members<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, October 20, 2025 12:49 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:members@lists.sigcis.org">members@lists.sigcis.org</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [SIGCIS-Members] Tommy Flowers</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A great story… Flowers’ career was full
of brilliant inventions.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black"><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/12/move-over-alan-turing-meet-the-working-class-hero-of-bletchley-park-you-didnt-see-in-the-movies__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSt_1EG6a$" moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="color:white;text-decoration:none">Move over, Alan Turing: meet
the working-class hero of
Bletchley Park you didn’t
see in the movies</span></a></span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black"><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/12/move-over-alan-turing-meet-the-working-class-hero-of-bletchley-park-you-didnt-see-in-the-movies__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSt_1EG6a$" moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="color:white;text-decoration:none">theguardian.com</span></a></span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif"></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Dag</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">-----<br>
Dag Spicer<br>
Senior Curator<br>
Computer History Museum<br>
Editorial Board, IEEE
Annals of the History of
Computing<br>
ACM History Committee<br>
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.<br>
Mountain View CA 94043</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">“History
is a vast early warning
system.” </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">—
Norman Cousins, American
journalist (1915-1990).</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">Join
our Mailing List here: <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://info.computerhistory.org/subscribe__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSuaQi_nV$" moz-do-not-send="true">https://info.computerhistory.org/subscribe</a> </span></p>
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