Jane Fawcett

Jane Fawcett MBE (née Hughes; 4 March 1921 – 21 May 2016) was a British codebreaker, singer, and heritage preservationist. She recently became known for her role in decoding a message, which led to the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. From 1963 to 1976 she served as the secretary of the Victorian Society. She wrote and edited works including The Future of the Past; Seven Victorian Architects; The Village in History and Save the City.

Early life Janet Carolin (or Caroline) Hughes was born on 4 March 1921 the daughter of George Hughes, the clerk of the Goldsmiths' livery company, and his wife, Margaret (nee Graham). Her paternal grandparents were Thomas McKenny Hughes, the 8th Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge University and Mary Caroline Hughes.

Jane was raised in London, attended Miss Ironside's School for Girls in Kensington, trained as a ballet dancer, and was admitted to the Royal Ballet School. She found that lifestyle boring, "a complete waste of time" She joined a group of women known as the "Debs of Bletchley Park", so called because they were women recruited from upper classes, debutantes, to work in secret as part of the Enigma project. After the war ended, she married Edward Fawcett, took his surname, and trained at the Royal Academy of Music. From the end of the war to the early 1960s, she had a 15-year career as an opera singer.

She was dubbed "the furious Mrs Fawcett" for her role in fighting with British Rail to preserve historic railway stations, and was instrumental in the 1967 preservation of St Pancras station in London

In 1976 Jane Fawcett was appointed MBE and stepped down from active leadership.

Publications

The future of the past: Attitudes to conservation, 1174-1974 (1976). Edited by Jane Fawcett. Thames and Hudson

Save the City: a conservation study of the City of London (1979). David Lloyd, Jennifer Freeman, Jane Fawcett.

The Village in History (1988). Jane Fawcett, Nigel Nicolson, Graham Nicholson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd

Seven Victorian Architects (1990). Jane Fawcett. Pennsylvania State University Press

Historic Floors: Their History and Conservation (1998). Jane Fawcett. Butterworth-Heinemann

Awards and recognition MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 1976 Honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 1976