The

The From the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.

Welcome to the June 2023 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast, Sinclair in Focus.

Who chose Bletchley Park, a vacant estate in Buckinghamshire, as the wartime home of the

codebreakers? That decision was made by the man in

charge of the Secret Intelligence Service known as C, Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair. A very public man

with a very secretive profession, Sinclair was widely known and well respected. He passed away just a

couple of months after World War II began in 1939, but his influence was far-reaching.

Bletchley Park Trust is proud to be displaying for the first time a collection of medals awarded to Sinclair throughout his life.

This recent generous donation from members of his family formed this year's Object in Focus exhibition.

The display is an opportunity to reveal a lesser-known character in Bletchley Park's story

and a chance to honour this important and charismatic individual.

In this episode, we'll be speaking to Bletchley Park's research officer, Dr Thomas Cheatham

and award-winning author Mick Smith to find out more about C.

You'll also hear from me,

Exhibitions Manager Erica Munro, about the new exhibition, and we'll meet members of Sinclair's

family to uncover more about the collection of medals on display. Many thanks to Dr Ben Thompson

for voicing our archival documents.

This episode, Sinclair in Focus, is looking at Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair and his life,

his background, and we're obviously doing it to tie into the very recently open display of his medals that we have in a showcase in Block C right now.

Tom, can you give us more background about the man himself, his personal life? Where did he come from?

So Sinclair's from good naval stock, I suppose. He's not the product of marriage. He's actually the illegitimate son of Admiral Frederick Seymour.

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