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Oliver Strachey
CBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(3 November 1874 – 14 May 1960), a British
civil servant
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
in the
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
, was a
cryptographer
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...
from
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
to
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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Life and work
Strachey was a son of Sir
Richard Strachey
Sir Richard Strachey (24 July 1817 – 12 February 1908) was a British soldier and Indian administrator, the third son of Edward Strachey and grandson of Sir Henry Strachey, 1st Baronet.
Early life
He was born on 24 July 1817, at Sutton ...
,
colonial administrator
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
and
Jane Maria Strachey
Jane Maria Strachey, Lady Strachey (13 March 1840 – 14 December 1928) was an English suffragist and writer. Her father was a British colonial administrator and she later married her father's secretary, Sir Richard Strachey, and ten of their ch ...
, writer and
suffragist
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
, and a brother of the writer
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...
, the writer
Dorothy Bussy
Dorothy Bussy ( Strachey; 24 July 1865 – 1 May 1960) was an English novelist and translator, close to the Bloomsbury Group.
Family background and childhood
Dorothy Bussy was a member of the Strachey family, one of ten children of Jane ...
and the psychoanalyst and editor of the ''
Standard Edition Standard may refer to:
Symbols
* Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs
* Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification
Norms, conventions or requirements
* Standard (metrology), an object th ...
''
James Strachey
James Beaumont Strachey (; 26 September 1887, London25 April 1967, High Wycombe) was a British psychoanalyst, and, with his wife Alix, a translator of Sigmund Freud into English. He is perhaps best known as the general editor of ''The Standar ...
. He was educated at
Eton College
Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...
; he attended
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
for one term (
Hilary 1893). His parents sent him on a tour around the world with
Robert Bridges
Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...
. Then he studied the piano in Vienna under
Theodor Leschetizky
Theodor Leschetizky (sometimes spelled Leschetitzky, pl, Teodor Leszetycki; 22 June 1830 – 14 November 1915 was an Austrian-Polish pianist, professor, and composer born in Landshut in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then a crown land of ...
. While there he attended the funeral of
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...
in 1897.
[Michael Holroyd, ''Lytton Strachey'', p. 107] His playing was of a certain standard, but not up to concert performance, so he returned to England and joined the
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
.
[
His first marriage, in 1900, to Ruby Julia Mayer produced one daughter, ]Julia Strachey
Julia Strachey (14 August 1901 – 1979) was an English writer, born in Allahabad, India, where her father, Oliver Strachey, the elder brother of Lytton Strachey, was a civil servant. Her mother, Ruby Mayer (1881-1959), was of Swiss-German ori ...
, and ended in divorce.
In 1911, he married Ray Costelloe (1887–1940). They had two children, Barbara Strachey
Barbara Halpern Strachey (17 July 1912 – 15 October 1999 in Oxford, England) was a British author.
Barbara Strachey was born to parents Oliver Strachey, a cryptographer in World War I and World War II, and the feminist politician, writer, and ...
(born 1912) and Christopher Strachey
Christopher S. Strachey (; 16 November 1916 – 18 May 1975) was a British computer scientist. He was one of the founders of denotational semantics, and a pioneer in programming language design and computer time-sharing.F. J. Corbató, et al., ...
(born 1916). Christopher Strachey later became a pioneer in the development of computers and computer languages. Barbara Strachey became a writer.
While at the Foreign Office, he engaged in work on the East Indian Railway
The East Indian Railway Company, operating as the East Indian Railway (reporting mark EIR), introduced railways to East India and North India, while the Companies such as the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, South Indian Railway, Bombay, Barod ...
and historical research. He co-authored with his wife Ray a work on ''Keigwin's Rebellion'' (1683–84), an episode in the history of Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
; it was published in 1916.
In World War I, he was in British Military (Army) Intelligence, MI1
MI1 or British ''Military Intelligence, Section 1'' was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. It was set up during World War I. It contained "C&C", which was responsible for code breaking.
I ...
. Between the wars, he was in the Government Code and Cypher School
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 Unit ...
. In 1934, Strachey and Hugh Foss
Hugh Rose Foss (13 May 1902 – 23 December 1971) was a British cryptanalyst. At Bletchley Park during World War II he made significant contributions both to the breaking of the German Enigma code and headed the section tasked with breaking Japan ...
broke the Japanese naval attaché machine cipher.
In World War II, he was 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 ...
. He headed the ISOS section deciphering various messages on the ''Abwehr
The ''Abwehr'' (German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the ''Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. A ...
'' network involved with turned German agents (part of the Double Cross system
The Double-Cross System or XX System was a World War II counter-espionage and deception operation of the British Security Service (a civilian organisation usually referred to by its cover title MI5). Nazi agents in Britain – real and false – w ...
), with the first decrypt issued on 14 April 1940. Initially codenamed Pear, the decrypts became known as ISOS, standing for Illicit Services (Oliver Strachey). He was replaced as head of ISOS by Denys Page
Sir Denys Lionel Page (11 May 19086 July 1978) was a British classicist and textual critic who served as the 34th Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge and the 35th Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. He is best known for h ...
in early 1942.
In December 1941, Strachey went to Ottawa, Canada, where he was chief cryptographer in the Examination Unit. This ambiguously named, top secret cypher department was the Canadian equivalent of Bletchley Park. His predecessor at the Unit was the notorious Herbert Osborne Yardley, who in 1931 had published a sensational exposé of American and British cryptography in World War I, ''The American Black Chamber ''The American Black Chamber'' is a 1931 book by Herbert O. Yardley. The book describes the inner workings of the interwar American governmental cryptography organization called the Black Chamber. The cryptography historian David Kahn called the b ...
''. Yardley's contract was not renewed under pressure from Washington. Strachey refused to go to Ottawa until Yardley had left the city.
Strachey brought with him from England, keys to high-level French Vichy
Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais.
It is a Spa town, spa and resort town and in World ...
and Japanese diplomatic codes, which initiated close cooperation with Washington and London. Although he did not speak or read Japanese, he helped break the Japanese encryption, which was very complex, since it used variations of kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
, hiragana
is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''.
It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...
, and romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
. He returned to Bletchley Park in September 1942.
His recreations were music and reading. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(CBE) in 1943.
References
Further reading
* ''Who Was Who, 1951–1960''.
* ''Action this Day'', edited by Michael Smith & Ralph Erskine (2001, Bantam London). .
* ''A History of the Examination Unit 1941–1945'', edited by G. deB. Robinson, the official history written in 1945, is in Library and Archives Canada.
* "Crytptographic Innocence: The Origin of Signals Intelligence in Canada in the Second World War", by Wesley Wark, in ''Journal of Contemporary History'', October 1987.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strachey, Oliver
1874 births
1960 deaths
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
British cryptographers
Bletchley Park people
People educated at Eton College
Pre-computer cryptographers
Oliver
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Foreign Office personnel of World War II
British people in colonial India