One Place Study, 5 St. John's Square - Barbara Annie Dixon
- Tony Smith
- 4 days ago
- 13 min read
Updated: 7 minutes ago
Barbara Annie Dixon is slightly different to the other individuals written about for the One Place Study of St. John's Square because she resided there later than other occupants previously researched. There are not many records of Barbara after World War Two because of the lack of availability of more recent records but her movements can be traced through newspaper reports concerning her husband Francis Raymond Perauddin. She was known to be living at No. 5 St. John's Square in the mid 1990's and at the beginning of the 21st century. However, this blog focuses mostly on her life prior to her arrival in Wakefield.
Documents released in 2019 by the National Archives, Kew which were previously a state secret revealed how the information from the Enigma coding of Bletchley Park was used. In September 2023 Dr Phil Judkins of Wakefield Historical Society revealed that Barbara Dixon had worked at Bletchley Park. Barbara had never spoken of her work there.
Early Life
Barbara Annie Dixon's story began on the 19th May 1919 when she was born at 34 Lothian Road, Middlesbrough to Elizabeth Dixon, formerly Garbutt and William Robert Dixon. William's occupation was a bank accountant. 34 Lothian Road still exists and is a modest mid terrace house (1).
Barbara Annie Dixon was baptised on the 12th June 1919 in the parish of St. John Evangelist, Middlesbrough. The abode address was 34 Lothian Road and William Robert Dixon's occupation was recorded as a banker (2).
William Robert Dixon and Elizabeth Garbutt were married on 6th July 1911 at St. Leonard's Church, Loftus. Loftus is near to the coast not far from Staithes and Saltburn-by-the-Sea. William Robert was living at 8 West Street, Loftus and Elizabeth at 10 Westfield Terrace, Loftus. These streets join one another, so they were living very close to one another at the time of their marriage. William Robert's occupation was a banker (3 & 4).
William Robert Dixon & Elizabeth Garbutt Marriage, St. Leonard's, Loftus, 1911 © Teesside Archives, Middlesbrough & Ancestry (3)
The 1921 Census shows that William Robert and Elizabeth were still living at 34 Lothian Road, Middlesbrough. William was age thirty eight years and six months old and was born in Loftus, Cleveland and was a bank accountant working for the Bank of Liverpool & Martins Ltd at 28-32 Albert Road, Middlesbrough, so he had a job with good prospects.
Elizabeth was age thirty six years and eleven months old and was born in Skelton-in-Cleveland.
Barbara had an elder sister called Rachel Mary who was four years ten months old.
The family were were able to afford to employ a general domestic servant to assist them with household chores (4).
The 1939 Register shows the family living at at "Tanfield", Yarm Road, Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland with Barbara recorded as a university student. The register was taken on the 29th September 1939, just 29 days after World War Two had started. She may not have known at the time but this event would completely change Barbara's life.
Her father William was a bank manager and elder sister Rachel was a lady cook. There were two other ladies, Norah Martin and Veronica Gibson living at the same address. Norah was an assistant schoolmistress (6).
Bletchley Park
What is now known as the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was formed in 1919 as a cryptanalytical unit called the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). GC&CS) was headed by Alastair Dennistoun from 1919 until 1942. Throughout the 1930's Dennistoun was planning the expansion of GS&SC as war loomed. The organisation moved to Bletchley Park in 1939 (7 & 8).
GC&CS was part of the Foreign Office and worked through the Civil Service Commission. Through the 1930's GC&CS was a small organisation with just 186 civil servants on the 4th September 1939. By 1945 there were 8,995. Initial recruitment in the 1930's was from undergraduates who were studying at Cambridge and Oxford. Potential candidates were invited to take exams. There were thirteen potential exams, two English, one Arithmetic and two papers each in French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish. Candidates were expected to sit the two English, one Arithmetic and two each in two of the other foreign languages. There were one hundred marks for each exam and the pass mark was 420 out 700. After this the candidate would be invited to a Civil Service interview panel which Alastair Dennistoun was likely to be present at. By 1937 Dennistoun needed to double the size of the organisation and was given funding to recruit fifty six seniors, men or women on £600.00 a year and graduate girls with knowledge of at least two languages to be paid just £150.00 per year. In 1939 of people 85% of people employed by the Civil Service went to Oxford or Cambridge.
On the 1941 list there were ninety one men and seven women who were in Assistant Officer grades. These were Temporary Senior Assistant Officer & Temporary Junior Assistant Officer grades. From the 1941 list the university background of only three of these women could be identified.
As the war progressed the recruitment process was ramped up considerably and entrance requirements were relaxed. The roll of honour for Bletchley Park contains over 13,000 names. Only 361 can be traced to a specific university with 153 from Cambridge, 93 from Oxford, 37 from London colleges and institutions, 42 from Scotland, 9 from Ireland, 6 from Wales and just 21 from the remainder of English universities. Most of the non graduates were recruited through military services, the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) ,The Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) and Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). By the end of World War 2 of the 9,000 staff working at Bletchley 75.6% were women who were mostly working in the junior production line factory roles.
One of the successes of Bletchley Park were that processes developed by Alan Turing and Bill Tutte which were highly mathematical and highly technical were broken down into a production line of processes. This made the work less challenging as most of the production line staff didn't have a university education. Data would be fed in at one end and go through six to eight offices with no one really understanding what they were doing. The data would appear at the other end as decrypt or a piece of intelligence. (9).
Barbara's Roll of Honour entry shows that she was a Foreign Office Civilian who was a Temporary Junior Assistant Officer (known as an Administrative Officer with a graduate or equivalent entry grade, to 1943. She worked in Hut 3 and Block D(3), 1943 as an Assistant to Trevor D. Jones on German technical term and military abbreviations. She attended St. Anne's College, Oxford (10). Trevor D. Jones was Temporary Senior Assistant Officer at Bletchley Park from 1943 to 1945 (11).
Hut 3 was built in June 1940 to replace a smaller hut built in August 1939. It is a wooden hut standing built on a brick plinth 125 metres north of the mansion. It housed an inter-service section to analyse the decrypted material generated by Hut 6 and specifically to translate and annotate high grade German signals (Enigma and non-morse) and report the results to Ministries and Commands in the Field. It comprised the Watch and Index rooms. The Watch Room personnel undertook the translation of Enigma decrypts received from Hut 6. Translations were then passed to Army and Air Advisers in the building who reviewed the intelligence using index cards in the large Index Room maintained by the Army and Air sections and by a special Research section formed in March 1941. Communication to government was by a direct, secret teleprinter line to London agreed in May 1941, together with a standard Typex system with a special security setting. In February 1943 Hut 3's staff moved to Block D, one of the new purpose-built brick blocks. Hut 3 was Grade 2 listed in 2005 (12).
St. Anne's College originated in 1879 and women were formally admitted to degrees for the first time until 1920. The first matriculations took place, 7th October 1920 and the first graduations a week later (13).
A talk in 2023 by Dr Phil Judkins of the Wakefield Historical Society revealed more about the work Barbara was involved in at Bletchley Park. At the time Germany was developing the V1 and V2 missiles. These resulted in the loss of 15,000 lives and wounded a further 47,000 people. Barbara was involved in the translation of messages that had been decoded but were written in highly technical German. Dr Phil Judkins passed round a summary book which contained not only some of the technical terms, but also a long list of abbreviations that Barbara Dixon would have needed to know. Her work was vital to identify the routes the missiles took to launch sites, times of launch and the path of the rockets, and because of this intelligence, many missiles were destroyed before reaching their targets. The British were able to destroy 4,000 of the 6,000 V-1 rockets fired at Britain (14 & 15).
There were two volumes for the History of Hut 3, 1940-1945 released by The National Archives, Kew (HW 3/119 and HW 3/120) in 2019. History of Hut 3 at BP, 1940-1945, bound: Volume I | The National Archives and History of Hut 3 at BP, 1940-1945, bound: Volume II. See also HW 43/64 | The National Archives
After World War Two & Later Life
On the 14th August 1948 Barbara, age 29 married Francis Raymond Perraudin, age 36. They were married at the British Consul, Hamburg Germany whilst both working as education officers at 110 Headquarters of the Control Commission of Germany in Munster. The witnesses were Handel B. Edwards and E. Lehnartz. The marriage certificate shows that Francis was previously married and divorced from Gilberte Germaine Marguerite Juliette Billard on 28th October 1946 (16 & 17).
Detailed plans for the Control Commission for Germany (CCG) were created by the War Office for both its military functions and the creation of political, economic and civil divisions. Planning had started as far back as 1943 on the assumption that there may be a residual German government or reconstituted German Ministries. There were five branches consisting of of finance, transportation, manpower, interior and economic and twelve branches, one of twelve was education where Barbara and Francis were working (18).
The CCG operated from 1945 to 1949 and was the story of how British, French and US public servants together with German counterparts worked to establish the Federal Republic Of Germany. It was a huge effort of teamwork to rebuild the institutions, laws, systems and attitudes to transform the country into a democratic West Germany (19).
CCG personnel were just 598 in September 1944, rose to 26,000 by 1947 and reduced to 4,000 by 1950 (20).
The British Zone was Germany's most urbanised and densely populated region and the most industrialised with twenty two million people. It consisted of North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg. Over 60% of the houses in the major towns were destroyed or uninhabitable. Transport was at a standstill, the Rhine unnavigable with its bridges destroyed and blocked with sunken shipping and the rail system was hardly functioning. There was a shortage of food and the winters were very cold, so this would not have been an easy posting for Barbara. Some of the tasks of the education department were to ensure there were an adequate supply of books, buildings and well trained teachers to provide all children with full time education (21).
In 1954 Barbara was at Dorchester, Dorset when Raymond was appointed as an assistant education officer for Wiltshire on an annual salary of £850.00 rising to £1,075.00 (22).
They stayed in Wiltshire until the summer of 1957 when it was reported that Raymond had resigned and would be replaced as the assistant education officer for Wiltshire (23).
A newspaper report from Friday 1st May 1964 confirmed that Francis and Barbara Annie had arrived in Wakefield seven years previous which was 1957(17).
The role that prompted the move to Wakefield was the Assistant Chief Officer for Primary Schools in the West Riding (24)
Raymond continued this role and a similar named roles until at least 1971 being described as Assistant Chief Officer of Primary Schools, Chief Administrative Assistant of Primary Schools and Assistant Education Officer for Primary Schools. Much of his role reported was around the Swinton area, now part of South Yorkshire (25, 26 & 27)
By 1977 he had moved from education to environment and was Chairman of the Yorkshire & Humberside Council for the Environment (28).
In 1981 he was awarding a certificate of merit in his role as a director of the West Yorkshire Countryside Ranger Service (29).
During the 1980's and 1990's Raymond was involved with Wakefield Civic Society and became its president. In 1986 he supervised the restoring of masonry and roofing of the Dame Mary Bolles tower at Heath as part of a community project (30) and in April 1990 was promoting a trust fund to secure the future of Wakefield Chantry Chapel with two open days (31).
Raymond died on the 18th September 1995 at Wakefield with a funeral service at St. John's Church, Wakefield on Monday 25th September followed by a cremation at Wakefield Crematorium. Donations were to the The Friends of Chantry Chapel, Wakefield (32 & 33).
Barbara died on the 12th March 2010, age 90 and her name is inscribed on a gravestone at St. Hilda Churchyard, Danby, North Yorkshire overlooking the North Yorkshire Moors along with Francis Raymond whose year of birth was confirmed as 1912. Her father William Robert Dixon, died 6th June 1955, age 72; her mother Elizabeth Dixon of Floyter House, Danby died 11 December 1958, age 74; her sister Rachel Mary Osborn, died 24th August 2002, age 86 & her brother-in-law Joseph Osborne, died 13th April 1977, age 66 (34).
Barbara like the majority of those employed at Bletchley Park only worked there for a short time but her work was vital in that it led to the destruction of many V-1 and V-2 rockets that could have caused far more damage to Britain and saved many lives. Once this period in her life was over she kept quiet about her wartime role and got on with her life.
Sources:
Barbara Annie Dixon Birth, Apr-Jun 1919. General Register Office. Middlesbrough, Vol 9d, Page 794. www.gro.gov.uk
Barbara Annie Dixon Baptism, Parish Baptism Register, St. John the Evangelist, Middlesbrough 1919, page 439. Teesside, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1923, digital image, Ancestry. Original held by Teesside Archives, Middlesbrough. Teesside, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1923 - Ancestry.co.uk
William Robert Dixon & Elizabeth Garbutt Parish Marriage 1911, St. Leonard's, Loftus 1911, page 215. Teesside, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1939, digital image, Ancestry. Original held by Teesside Archives, Middlesbrough. Teesside, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1939 - Ancestry.co.uk
William Robert Dixon & Elizabeth Garbutt Marriage, Jul-Sep 1911, Guisborough, Vol 9d, Page 983. www.gro.gov.uk
William Robert Dixon & Elizabeth Dixon,1921 England Census, Archive reference: RD535; RDMiddlesbrough; SDMiddlesbrough East; ED17; Schedule 77, digital image, Ancestry. England, Wales & Scotland Census. Original held by The National Archives, Kew, London. 1921 England Census - Ancestry.co.uk
Barbara Dixon 1939 Register. Archive reference RG101; RD544/2, digital image, Ancestry. Original held The National Archives, Kew, London. 1939 England and Wales Register - Ancestry.co.uk
GCHQ, History. Our origins & WWI - GCHQ.GOV.UK
GCHQ, Alastair, Alastair Dennistoun. Alastair Denniston - GCHQ.GOV.UK
Bletchley Park Week 2023: 'Nice girls' and 'Professor-Types', Dr David Kenyon, Published on You Tube. Bletchley Park Week 2023: ‘Nice girls’ and ‘Professor-Types’
Bletchley Park, Roll of Honour, Miss Barbara Annie Dixon (Perraudin Roll of Honour | Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park, Roll of Honour, Mr Trevor D. Jones. Roll of Honour | Bletchley Park
Hut 3 at Bletchley Park, Historic England. Hut 3 at Bletchley Park, West Bletchley - 1391799 | Historic England
St. Anne's College, University of Oxford, History. History | St Anne's College, Oxford
'Hot off the Press' by Dr Phil Judkins, Meeting of the Wakefield Historical Society, 13th September 2023. Previous Events - Wakefield Historical Society
War History V–1 Missile and V–2 Rocket. V–1 Missile and V–2 Rocket - War History
Francis Raymond Perraudin & Barbara Annie Dixon GRO Consular Marriage,1946-1950. Archive reference: MCON, Vol 42, Page 257, Line No. 58 Record Transcription: British Armed Forces And Overseas Banns And Marriages | findmypast.co.uk
Todmorden & District News, 01 May 1964, page 4. British Newspaper Archive, digital image, Find My Past. Original at British Library National Newspaper Building at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire Findmypast | findmypast.co.uk
CCG Organisation. Organisation | Control Commission G
Control Commission Germany 1945-49. Home | Control Commission Germany 1945-49
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Shipley Times & Express, 18th March 1959, page 4. British Newspaper Archive, digital image, Find My Past. Original at British Library National Newspaper Building at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire. Shipley Times and Express 18 March 1959 Page 4 | findmypast.co.uk
South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times, 25th January 1964, page 5. British Newspaper Archive, digital image, Find My Past. Original at British Library National Newspaper Building at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire. South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times 25 January 1964 Page 5 | findmypast.co.uk
South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times, 25th January 1969, page 3. British Newspaper Archive, digital image, Find My Past. Original at British Library National Newspaper Building at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire. South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times 25 January 1969 Page 3 | findmypast.co.uk
Yorkshire Post & Leeds Intelligencer, 28th May 1971, page 11. British Newspaper Archive, digital image, Find My Past. Original at British Library National Newspaper Building at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire. Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer 28 May 1971 Page 11 | findmypast.co.uk
Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 26th November 1977, page 3. British Newspaper Archive, digital image, Find My Past. Original at British Library National Newspaper Building at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire. Huddersfield Daily Examiner 26 November 1977 Page 3 | findmypast.co.uk
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Francis Raymond Perraudin, Death 1995. FreeBMD. GRO Ref: Wakefield, Vol 991A, Page 191.Original record, General Register Office. FreeBMD - Search
Barbara Mary Perraudin Grave, St. Hilda's Churchyard, Danby, North Yorkshire. Memorial ID 162878813. Find A Grave. Barbara Annie Perraudin (1919-2010) - Find a Grave Memorial
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