Sir Edward Wilfred Harry Travis (24 September 1888 – 23 April 1956) was a British cryptographer and

intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a rank, used in the same way ...

, becoming the operational head of

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 ...

during

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 ...

, and later the head of GCHQ.

Career

Educated locally in Blackheath, Travis joined the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

in 1906 as a

Paymaster A paymaster is someone appointed by a group of buyers, sellers, investors or lenders to receive, hold, and dispense funds, commissions, fees, salaries (remuneration) or other trade, loan, or sales proceeds within the private sector or public secto ...

officer, and served on HMS ''Iron Duke''.Edward Travis at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
/ref> From 1916 to 1918, he worked on Navy

cypher Cypher is an alternative spelling for cipher. Cypher may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Cypher (French Group), a Goa trance music group * Cypher (band), an Australian instrumental band * ''Cypher'' (film), a 2002 film * ''Cypher'' ...

s. He retired in the 1920s, having reached the rank of

Commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

. By 1925, he was in charge of security at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and deputy to Alastair Denniston. Travis replaced Denniston as the operational head of Bletchley Park in February 1942, although both took the title of Deputy Director. This may have happened because in October 1941 four senior cryptanalysts,

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...

, Gordon Welchman, Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, and Stuart Milner-Barry had written directly to Churchill, over the head of Denniston, to alert Churchill to the fact that a shortage of staff at Bletchley Park was preventing them from deciphering many messages, to the detriment of the war effort. These cryptanalysts, known as the Wicked Uncles, had also praised the "energy and foresight" of Commander Travis while omitting mention of Denniston. However, Christopher Grey notes that other factors also contributed to Travis' promotion, including a personality clash between Denniston and

Stewart Menzies Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, (; 30 January 1890 – 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), from 1939 to 1952, during and after the Second World War. Early life, family Stewart Graham Menzies wa ...

, the Director of the Government Code and Cypher School and the head of the

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intellige ...

, as well as an ongoing and unresolved management crisis in

Hut 3 Hut 3 was a section of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park during World War II. It retained the name for its functions when it moved into Block D. It produced military intelligence codenamed ULTRA from the decrypts ...

. Turing's biographer says that after the change, Travis "presided over an administrative revolution" reconciling the management structure to the production process. Travis was involved with William Friedman in working on the

1943 BRUSA Agreement The 1943 BRUSA Agreements (Britain–United States of America agreement) Ralph Erskine, ' Birch, Francis Lyall (1889–1956)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 was an agreement between the British and US go ...

and the subsequent 1946 UKUSA Agreement, which forms the basis for all

signal intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...

cooperation between the US

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

(NSA) and the UK

Government Communications Headquarters 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 ...

(GCHQ) to this day. Travis remained head of the post-war successor to GCCS, GCHQ, and served as its director until 15 April 1952, when he was replaced by Eric Jones. Travis was appointed CBE in 1936, and KCMG in June 1944. Travis was the first non-American to be awarded the United States of America Medal for Merit, on 12 January 1946.

References

1888 births 1956 deaths Royal Navy officers Bletchley Park people Directors of the Government Communications Headquarters Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Royal Navy officers of World War I Foreign Office personnel of World War II Royal Navy logistics officers {{UK-navy-bio-stub