Harry Hinsley

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Professor Sir Harry Hinsley was a British historian.

Hinsley was the the son of an employee of the coal department at the Walsall Co-op and a school caretaker. He went to St John's College, Cambridge in 1937, but was recruited there into the Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS) At Bletchley Park before he could complete his degree.[1]

In September 1944, Hinsley became part of a small planning group formed to consider the postwar future of GC&CS along with Gordon Welchman and Edward Crankshaw.[2]

In spring 1945, Hinsley travelled to Washington as assistant to GC&CS head, Sir Edward Travis.[3]

He accompanied Travis on a further visit to Washington in October 1945, to continue negotiations on SIGINT collaboration.[4]

He earned his MA at Cambridge in 1946.[5]

Hinsley produced the five-part British Intelligence in the Second World War between 1979 and 1990.[5]

In 1946, he returned to St John's College where he had been elected a fellow, two years before.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag

He was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge in 1981 to 1983.<ref name="IndObit".Peter Linehan, Obituary: Professor Sir Harry Hinsley, Independent, 19 February 1998.</ref>

External resources

Notes

  1. At Bletchley Park, Hinsley specialised in German naval radio traffic.<ref name="IndObit".Peter Linehan, Obituary: Professor Sir Harry Hinsley, Independent, 19 February 1998.
  2. Richard J. Aldrich, GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency, HarperPress, 2010, p.64.
  3. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.52.
  4. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.54.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Wolfgang Saxon, Sir Francis Harry Hinsley, 79, British Historian, New York Times, 24 February 1998.