Margaret Rock

Margaret Rock (July 7, 1903 – August 26, 1983) was one of the few women mathematician who worked on the in Bletchley Park during World War II. With her math skills and education, Rock was able to decode the Enigma Machine against the German Army. Her work during the war was classified by the Official Secrets Act 1939, so much of her work was not revealed during her lifetime.^[1]

Early life

Rock was born and raised in Hammersmith, London to parents of Frank Ernest Rock and Alice Margaret Simmonds.^[2] Rock attended Edmonton elementary and North Middlesex School. Rock's father served in the Royal Navy as a surgeon between 1894 to 1896 while her mother took care of her and her brother.^[2] Frank Rock would send letters to his children frequently, to stay in communication in 1914, just before World War I.

In 1917, Margaret, her mother and brother settled in Portsmouth, London, after moving frequently for three years.^[2] Margaret Rock attended Portsmouth High School, an all female private boarding school. Her father died in a German U-Boat attack. Rock was encouraged by the letters her late father wrote to her, telling Margaret to keep up with her studies and to be successful in the future. Her brother, John Frank Rock, became a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers.^[2]

Education

Margaret Rock passed the London General School Exam in June 1919.^[2] During high school, she received honors in the classes of french, mathematics, and music.^[2] Rock went to Bedford College, University of London, to earn a Bachelors of Arts Degree in 1921.^[2]

After college, Rock was employed as a statistician by the National Association of Manufacturers (The Federation of British Industry).^[2] Rock predicted the economic market and how different businesses and companies would respond to the market. In her free time, Margaret and her brother would travel to different countries such as Italy, France, Switzerland, and Sri Lanka.

World War II

In the beginning of World War II, Rock and her mother evacuated London to Cranleigh, Surrey.^[2] Margaret quit her old job, wanting a career in a time when the woman's role was primarily to be the wife and stay-at-home mother. She was then recruited for a new job at Bletchley Park on April 15, 1940.^[2] She worked for Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, who was the Head of Government Code and Cypher School and Secret Intelligence Service. She trained and worked along side mathematicians and professors to break and decode enemy messages with the Enigma machine. Margaret worked closely with Mavis Lever Batey, a fellow coworker who worked on the same projects together.

German Military thought that the Enigma cipher was indestructible because of the difficult codes it would produce every day.^[3] The Enigma Machine was not coding fast enough, thus a new device was needed to win the war. By her hard work, Rock was ranked one of the better workers on the Enigma Machine project, and was promoted to seniority and a higher salary. On December 8, 1941, the Abwehr Enigma (the German Enigma Machine) message was decoded and read by the team in Bletchley Park. This feat gave an advantage to Britain to plan the D-Day attack.^[2]

After The War

Rock worked for governmental jobs, such as the Government Communications Headquarters until she retired in 1963.^[2] Because of the Official Secrets Act 1939, Rock never spoke about her work to anyone.^[2] Even late in her life and Bletchley Park and codebreaking was circulating the news, she would not comment about her contribution to the Colossus. On August 26, 1983 she died in in Ronkswood Hospital, Worcester.

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