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Code-cracker and the genetics expert were pioneering researchers
PROFESSOR Donald Michie, 83, and Dame Anne McLaren, 80, who died in a car accident two weeks ago, were both pioneering researchers in their fields.
Prof Michie was a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, helping crack German codes that provided crucial information for the D-Day landings. After the war, his interests led him to study artificial intelligence, while Dame Anne became a leading geneticist.
The pair continued to deliver papers and lectures up to their deaths. They died on their way home from the wedding of a colleague at Cambridge University.
Donald was born in India and, after being taught at Rugby school, he went to Oxford to study classics in 1942.
He decided to help the war effort by becoming an intelligence officer, planning to study Japanese, but after discovering the course he wanted to take was full, he instead trained as cryptographer.
It was here his talents came to the fore, and he began a life-long interest.
Using computers, he developed techniques for quickly breaking German codes. It laid the basis for his later work on building computers that would show intelligence.
He returned to Oxford to study anatomy and physiology and then, drawing on his childhood hobby of breeding mice, wrote for the science journal Nature a series of genetic studies.
It was at Oxford that he met Anne.
The pair were both members of the Communist Party, with Anne the secretary of the Oxford University branch, which at the time boasted over 100 members.
After graduating, the pair moved to University College London to work on vitro-fertilisation.
Donald then returned in the early 1960s to studying computers, and made advances in whether computers could be programmed to learn from experience. His foresight was such that he predicted at a conference in 1968 the advent of the internet.
Anne came from a wealthy industrial family with an aristocratic background. They were famous for their support for liberal politics – her father was Lord Aberconway, a Liberal MP – and their support of universal suffrage.
As a teenager, she refused to go to a finishing school, a decision supported by her mother. Her field of expertise was genetics: she studied zoology at Oxford and worked at UCL and then the Royal Veterinary College.
The couple had three children and Dame Anne, who was still working while raising a young family, became a powerful advocate for equality at work and backed state-provided child care. She was aware of the difficulties of balancing family life with a career.
They remained close despite their divorce. After Prof Michie’s second wife Jean was diagnosed with cancer, the pair moved in with Anne in Ainger Road, Primrose Hill.
After Jean’s death, the couple moved to Dunollie Road, Kentish Town, in April, 2006.
DAN CARRIER |
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