Recognising Bletchley Park's unsung heroines

The project, launched on Friday, called the "Women of Station X" or the "Women of Bletchley Park", is the brainchild of Sue Black, chair of BCSWomen — a networking group within BCS that strives to support female IT professionals in the workplace — and the head of the department of information and software systems at the University of Westminster.

Speaking at an event to publicise the project, Black (pictured) said she was horrified that, despite all their hard work, women's achievements at Bletchley Park hadn't been fully recognised historically.

A visit to Bletchley Park's museum four years ago triggered the idea. Black said of the historical exhibits: "I found it fascinating, but it was all about the men that worked there. I thought: we can do something to show what a lovely job was done at Bletchley Park, and that it was done by women."

Since that day, Black and project lead Jan Peters have been interviewing many of the women who worked at Station X, with the aim of documenting their stories for the web-based project, which is now live on the BCS' website. The project was initially funded by only BCS, but that funding has since been matched by the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology and added to by the European Social Fund.