Nigel de Grey
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Nigel de Grey (27 March 1886 – 25 May 1951) was a British codebreaker. Son of the rector of
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, Suffolk, and grandson of the 5th Lord Walsingham, he was educated at
Eton College Eton College () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI of England, Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. i ...
and became fluent in French and German. In 1907 he joined the publishing firm of
William Heinemann William Henry Heinemann (18 May 1863 – 5 October 1920) was an English publisher of Jewish descent and the founder of the Heinemann publishing house in London. Early life On 18 May 1863, Heinemann was born in Surbiton, Surrey, England. Heine ...
. As he was shy and physically small, a colleague labelled him "the dormouse".


World War I

De Grey joined the
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and served in
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. In early 1915 he was transferred to Naval Intelligence Division, Room 40 codebreaking section. He,
Dilly Knox Alfred Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox, CMG (23 July 1884 – 27 February 1943) was a British classics scholar and papyrologist at King's College, Cambridge and a codebreaker. As a member of the Room 40 codebreaking unit he helped decrypt the Zimm ...
and Reverend William Montgomery decrypted the Zimmermann Telegram on 17 January 1917. The Zimmermann Telegram was from the
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foreign secretary
Arthur Zimmermann Arthur Zimmermann (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1940) was State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the German Empire from 22 November 1916 until his resignation on 6 August 1917. His name is associated with the Zimmermann Telegram during World War ...
to the German ambassador
Heinrich von Eckardt Heinrich von Eckardt (20 July 1861, in Riga, Russian Empire – 3 March 1944, in Jena, Germany) was a Baltic German diplomat in the service of the German Empire. Life and work After studying jurisprudence at the University of Jena from 1881 to 18 ...
in
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, telling him to offer the Mexican government the return of the states of Arizona, Texas and New Mexico as an inducement to Mexico to side with Germany against the United States. The public disclosure of this secret Mexican-German pact brought the US into
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. De Grey was promoted and assigned to run the NID's Mediterranean section, liaise with the director of Italian naval intelligence and focus on Austrian cipher traffic.


World War II

In
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
Nigel de Grey was assigned to the "Government Code and Cypher School" (GC&CS) at
Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
, where he concentrated on German traffic encrypted on the Enigma cipher machine. In September 1941 he provided a report to the
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with the first references from German authorities to their own police battalions systematically levelling villages and removing their populations. One signal boasted of 30,000 executions "in the central area". Following a warning made in a speech to parliament by Churchill, a German circular in October 1941 cautioned that no further references to "sensitive operations" should be made on wireless channels. After World War II de Grey remained with GC&CS, which became
GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...
in 1946. Eventually he became a deputy director and led a team working on Soviet cable traffic. He retired in 1951 and died a very short time later of a heart-attack in
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, London. His wife, whom he married in 1910, survived him.


References

* Nigel West, "Grey, Nigel Arthur de (1886-1951)" in the ''
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'' * Paul Gannon, "Inside Room 40: The Codebreakers of World War I", London, 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:De Grey, Nigel British cryptographers Pre-computer cryptographers Bletchley Park people 1886 births 1951 deaths Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War I British people of World War II Signals intelligence of World War I
Nigel Nigel ( ) is an English language, English masculine given name. The English ''Nigel'' is commonly found in records dating from the Middle Ages; however, it was not used much before being revived by 19th-century antiquarians. For instance, Walte ...
People educated at Eton College People from Babergh District