Oliver Strachey
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Oliver Strachey (3 November 1874 – 14 May 1960), a British civil servant in the Foreign Office was a cryptographer from WWI to WWII.
He was a son of Lt-Gen Sir Richard Strachey & Lady (Jane) Strachey, and a brother of the writer Lytton Strachey. He was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. According to Who was Who he was in the Foreign Office, and engaged in work on East Indian Railway 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; it was published in 1916.
In WWI he was in British Military (Army) Intelligence, MI1. Between the wars, he was in the Government Code and Cypher School. In 1934 Strachey and Hugh Foss broke the Japanese naval attaché machine cipher.
In WWII he was at Bletchley Park. He headed the ISOS section deciphering various messages on the Abwehr network involved with turned German agents (part of the Double Cross system), with the first decrypt issued on 14 April 1940. Initially codenamed Pear, the decrypts became known as ISOS, standing either for Illicit or Intelligence Services (Oliver Strachey). He was replaced as head of ISOS by Denys Page in early 1942.
His first marriage to Ruby Julia Mayer produced one daughter and ended in divorce. In 1911 he married Rachel Conn (Ray) Costelloe (1887-1940). They had two children Christopher and Barbara. Christopher Strachey would later become a pioneer in the development of computers and computer languages.
His recreations were music and reading. He was awarded a C.B.E. in 1943.
[edit] References
- Who was Who, 1951-1960
- Action this Day edited by Michael Smith & Ralph Erskine (2001, Bantam London) ISBN 0593049101
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