Moley

Born and raised in Gloucestershire, Stephen Freer was a King's Scholar at Eton where his exceptional academic ability was recognised. He read Classics at Trinity, Cambridge and then, in 1942, aged 22, having been turned down by the army on health grounds he was recruited to join the Diplomatic Section at Bletchley Park, decoding Japanese and other cyphers. After the War, Stephen worked for the Historical Manuscripts Commission in London and for the Bodleian Library in Oxford. He spent the last 21 years of his long life translating Latin books, including Wharton's Adenographia and Linnaeus' Philosophia Botanica (Oxford University Press.) Moley is a memoir by his widow Frederica who describes him as a gentle, sweet, somewhat eccentric man.