Jean Argles (née Owtram) (7 November 1925 – 2 April 2023) was a Second World War code breaker and cipher officer.
As a teenager, Jean Owtram joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) in London, signing the Official Secrets Act 1911 and working in the Special Operations Executive (SOE).
Carey Owtram owned a cotton mill in Bolton, Lancashire, and the military-minded family[3] lived in a large sandstone house in the countryside.
Jean Owtram returned home from boarding school at age sixteen and took a secretarial course in order to have a qualification suitable for employment.
[5] An aunt who lived in London encouraged Argles to apply to join the 2,000 elite, uniformed personnel of FANY, the oldest of the women's forces, which had been founded in 1907.
After two or three weeks of basic training and having signed the Official Secrets Act, she was charged in 1943 with decoding messages from agents abroad using a wireless-based, handwritten system that was changed daily.
[2] On her second stint in Italy, she worked in the Allied Control Commission, then with refugees in Austria for the Central Mediterranean Forces, and later with UNESCO.