HSD Key Visionaries in WW1

HSD Key Visionaries in WW1 Sir J. Alfred Ewing

As Director of Room 40, the top secret Admiralty military code breaking unit, Alfred led the intelligence team that, without hyperbole, changed the course of the war. In fact, without his efforts the war would almost certainly have dragged on for at least another year, bringing with it hundreds of thousands of additional deaths.

So, who was this remarkable man, and what did he achieve? Born in Dundee on 27 March 1855, Alfred Ewing, in full James Alfred Ewing, was the third son of the Reverend James Ewing, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. Alfred attended both West End Academy and the High School of Dundee before securing a Baxter scholarship to study his Engineering degree at the University of Edinburgh. Alfred’s outstanding academic career did not commence until 1878 when we was appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Physics at the newly established Imperial University of Tokyo. Whilst in Tokyo, he undertook research into earthquakes and was instrumental in the founding of Japanese seismology. Additionally, he studied magnetism and gave the name to the phenomenon of hysteresis. One year into his time in Tokyo, Alfred married Anne Washington on May 14 1879. Interestingly, Anne was a descendant of President George Washington’s brother, John Augustine Washington. They went on to have two children together, Maud, born in 1880, and Wilson allowed Germany to use America’s cables on condition

Alfred, born a year later. Come 1883, Alfred had returned to his hometown of Dundee to work at the University College Dundee as its first Professor of Engineering. He became just as well known for his social work as his research during this time, ensuring to involve himself in schemes to try to improve the living conditions in his home city. So much so, that he undertook a leading role in improving the city’s sewage system. Relocating to Cambridge in 1890, Alfred took up the position of Professor of Mechanism and Applied Mechanics at King’s College, where he developed his earlier work on the magnetic properties of metals as well as investigating the crystalline structure of metals. Several years later, in 1903, he left Cambridge to tackle a completely different challenge as Director of Naval Education at the British Admiralty, based in Greenwich. As a reward for his services, Alfred was made Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1906, and then Knight Commander of the Bath in 1911. With the outbreak of World War One in 1914 and through his work at Greenwich, Alfred came to the attention of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. He then agreed to become the Head of what came to be known as Room 40, the Admiralty intelligence department of cryptanalysis, responsible predominantly for intercepting German cable and radio messages Dundee through the Ewing Building, which was erected in 1954

and passing the results to our military and political leaders. Under Alfred, its talented staff were able to warn of Zeppelin enabled the Navy to keep tabs on the German Fleet and its intended movements. They warned of German naval operations

on Dogger Bank and off Jutland, respectively, thereby enabling the Royal Navy to neutralize, if not destroy, German naval power. Alfred’s greatest coup however was Room 40’s success in cracking the encrypted ‘Zimmermann Telegram’, a success which was directly instrumental in bringing the USA into the war. Germany had no cables running to America. However, President that transmissions were entirely peaceful. The Germans ignored this, and Room 40 listened in. On 11 January 1917, Germany’s foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann cabled Mexico offering his ‘make war together, make peace together’ deal. This proposed that, in the event of war between the United States and Germany, Mexico should attack the US from the south. Following a German victory the reward for Mexico would be the recovery of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, territories lost to the USA in the War of 1846–1848. This was dynamite. With great skill Room 40 managed to inform the US without revealing its own existence. It caused outrage in the US and in April 1917, Wilson brought America into the war. In May 1916, Alfred accepted an invitation to become Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, and so in 1917 he stood down from Room 40. During a lecture to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution in 1927, he revealed the first semi-official disclosure of the work undertaken by Room 40. Closer to home, he became the first Honorary President of the Old Boys’ Club. After the passing of his first wife, Anne, in 1912, Alfred went on to marry Ellen Hopkinson, a daughter of one of his old friends, with whom he is buried with in Cambridge. Alfred passed away in 1935, aged 80. To this very day, Alfred’s name lives on at the University of raids, cracked wireless transmissions from submarines and

and named in his honour. Many thanks must be given to current F6 pupil, Cameron Walker, for his assistance with research for this article.

Agnes Forbes Blackadder

Dr. Agnes Forbes Blackadder Savill was one of the most distinguished of a cohort of early medical graduates from Queen Margaret College for Women. sadly widowed in 1910 after only 12 years of marriage, went out

She was born on 4 December 1875 in Dundee and her father, Robert Blackadder, was an architect and civil engineer. Agnes attended the High School of Dundee until 1892. She then went on to study at the University of St. Andrews, obtaining an MA from the same in 1895, which interestingly saw her become the very first female graduate from her University. In 1895, Agnes left her home at Bellevue, West Ferry to take up residence at Queen Margaret Hall, in Glasgow. This particular period of time posed many challenges for clever, ambitious the French General Le Bon. She had an acute appreciation of the

young ladies as Queen Margaret College had only recently begun awarding degrees to women. She was described as a highly gifted medical student. In addition to being awarded first prize in Practical Pathology in 1896, she also received a string of First Class Certificates in Materia Medica, Surgery, Midwifery, Opthalmology and Insanity. Further to this, she also obtained a Second Class Certificate in Anatomy. On 21 his Times, which can still be bought on Amazon today. It is said

July 1898, Agnes graduated from Queen Margaret College with an MB and ChB. Come 1901 she was awarded her MD. That same year, at the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Forfarshire, she married Thomas Dixon Savill, a fellow Doctor who obtained his MB and MD in London. After her marriage, Agnes’ career took her to London, where she became a consultant in Dermatology and Electrotherapeutics. She also gained experience in radiological work, which would a Member of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and three years later, in 1907, she had the distinction of being appointed as a Consultant to a hospital which was not exclusively for women, St. John’s Hospital for Skin Diseases. At the same time as making an established career for herself in London, Agnes was also a highly respected suffragette. In 1912, she was one of three distinguished doctors, the other two being male surgeons, who conducted an inquiry into the appalling treatment of women hunger strikers in prison. She also published various papers on the subject. Britain then declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, which significantly changed the path Agnes’ career was taking. In May 1915, she went to France having joined the staff of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. She served at Royaumont Hospital, approximately 25 miles outside of Paris, where she was in charge of the X-Ray and Electro-Therapy Departments. Agnes, who was to France for several work periods, usually returning to her post in London in winter when there was a lull in the fighting. Perhaps her greatest contribution to the war effort was in making the best use of a state-of-the-art x-ray car, which was gifted by dangers and mechanisms of gas gangrene and worked extremely hard to mitigate its effects with prompt diagnosis and treatment. Her studies of the x-ray appearances of the gangrene were pioneering. She returned to London after the war and lived first at 66 Harley Street, and later 7 Devonshire Place. Whilst continuing to pursue her own career, she also undertook to edit her husband’s textbook, Savill’s System of Clinical Medicine, a task she continued to do up until 1942. She also wrote her own book, Alexander the Great and

prove very useful during the First World War. In 1904, she became that she continued to see patients until late into her seventies. In addition to this, Agnes was also the first Honorary President of the Old Girls’ Club. Agnes is entitled to the British War and Victory Medals, French Médailles des épidémies 1st class. Additionally, she received the Scottish Women’s Hospitals Bronze Medal in 1914. Agnes passed away at 88 years of age on 12 May 1964. She features on the University of Glasgow’s WW1 Roll of Honour and, on 17 April 2012, students of the University of St. Andrews cast their votes, which saw the largest single-building Hall of Residence renamed as the Agnes Forbes Blackadder Hall. Many thanks must be given to current F6 pupil, Miguel Crowe, for his assistance with research for this article.