Claribel Spurling (Spurling variant)

Variant spelling: this person bears the related surname Spurling, not Spurlin. See Spurling (surname).

Claribel Spurling (1875–1941) was an English teacher, children's writer and cryptanalyst. She worked as a codebreaker for MI1(b), the cryptanalysis section of British military intelligence, in the First World War and then for the Government Code and Cypher School.^[1][2]

Early life and teaching

Spurling was born in 1875, a daughter of the Rev. Frederick William Spurling, and grew up in Oxford. She was educated at Oxford High School for Girls and the Society of Oxford Home-Students. She took second-class honours in Modern History in 1899, and received the MA in 1920, when Oxford opened degrees to women.^[1] When her father moved to Chester Cathedral in 1907, she became a history teacher at the Queen's School, Chester. In 1916 she was appointed headmistress of Birkenhead High School.^[1]

Codebreaking

Her brother, Captain Francis Spurling, was killed in action in 1917, and she joined the Women's Royal Naval Service that year.^[1] As MI1(b) expanded in 1917, its head, Malcolm Vivian Hay, set applicants a test based on a doctored French newspaper article that was described as practically impossible. Spurling was the only candidate to score 100%.^[1][2] She worked on French, German and Italian codes.^[1]

The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS, later GCHQ) was formed late in 1919 to carry on codebreaking in peacetime. Spurling joined it as a translator in January 1920, worked on Italian and Swedish codes, and within a few months was appointed a Junior Assistant.^[1]

Later life

Later in 1920 she became warden of Ellis Lloyd Jones Hall in Manchester. In 1927 she became the first warden of Crosby Hall in London, home of the International Federation of University Women.^[1] She encouraged drama at both halls. With Beatrice Clay, a colleague from the Queen's School, she wrote stories and plays for children based on myth and legend.^[1] She died in 1941.^[1]

Father

The Rev. Frederick William Spurling (3 February 1844 – 14 June 1914) was an Anglican priest, Oxford tutor and theological writer. Educated at St Paul's School, London, he won a scholarship to Wadham College, Oxford, and took a first in Literae Humaniores in 1866.^[3] He taught at Westminster School and Rugby School, then returned to Oxford as a lecturer at Brasenose College in 1874 and a tutor at Keble College in 1875. He joined Keble's governing council in 1897.^[3] An honorary canon of Chester Cathedral from 1899, he became a residentiary canon there in 1907. He published a commentary on the Book of Joshua and left a wife and five children.^[3]