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Alexander Guthrie Denniston

(1881-1961), Civil servant

Sitter in 1 portrait

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Alexander Guthrie Denniston, by Lafayette - NPG x48458

Alexander Guthrie Denniston

by Lafayette
half-plate nitrate negative, 24 February 1933
NPG x48458

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Candida Connolly, youngest daughter of Robin Denniston

24 July 2021, 21:47

Commander Alastair Guthrie Denniston CBE 1881-1961, Decoder in Room 40 in first world war, Head of (GC&CS) Government Code and Cypher School - now known as GCHQ - 1919 to 1942. Set up Bletchley Park in 1938, visited America in 1941 to begin the relationship with the Americans to join Bletchley Park. In 1942 he was moved to London to set up and run the Diplomatic Code breaking operation in Berkley Street. He retired in May 1945 before the end of the war on a very small pension. He taught for 2 years and then moved to a small cottage in Burley where he is buried.

Alastairr Denniston was Born in Greenock Scotland 1881 His father, a Doctor, set up a hospital in Dunoon but had also worked as a missionary Doctor in Ankara,Turkey, in 1877, and had died of TB when Alastair was 11. He had two younger siblings - a sister and a brother. He went to Bonn University to study and to the Sorbonne. He then taught German at the Royal Naval College, Osborn House. And was sent to Room 40 in 1914 at the beginning of the war. In 1918 he married Dorothy Guilliot who also worked in Room 40, and who had been at St Margaret’s College, Oxford with his sister Elizabeth Denniston. They had two children, Margaret (also called Y) 1925 - 2004 and Robin 1927 -2012