Admiral
Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet ...
Sir Hugh Francis Paget Sinclair, (18 August 1873 – 4 November 1939), known as Quex Sinclair, was a British intelligence officer. He was
Director of British Naval Intelligence between 1919 and 1921, and he subsequently helped to set up 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 ...
(SIS, commonly MI6) and
GCHQ.
Career
Sinclair was educated at
Stubbington House School and 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 ...
as a cadet aged 13 on 15 July 1886.
[Christopher Andrew, "Sinclair, Sir Hugh Francis Paget (1873–1939)", rev. '']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 ...
'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008 He was promoted to
lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations.
The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...
on 31 December 1894.
He entered the
Naval Intelligence Division at the beginning of the
First World War
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, ...
. He became
Director of Naval Intelligence in February 1919 and
Chief of the Submarine Service in 1921. He became the second director of
SIS in 1923. He was promoted vice-admiral on 3 March 1926 and full admiral on 15 May 1930. Sinclair also founded
GC&CS
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 ...
, later to be known as
GCHQ in 1919.
Beginning in 1919 he attempted to absorb the counterintelligence service
MI5 into the SIS to strengthen Britain's efforts against
Bolshevism
Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, ...
, an idea that was finally rejected in 1925. The SIS remained small and underfunded during the interwar years.
[ By 1936, Sinclair realised that the ]Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
had penetrated several SIS stations and Claude Dansey, who had been removed from his station in Rome, set up Z Organization, intended to work independently of the compromised SIS.
In 1938, with a second war looming, Sinclair set up Section D, dedicated to sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...
. In spring 1938, using £6,000 of his own money, he bought 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 ...
to be a wartime intelligence station.
Sinclair was asked in December 1938 to prepare a dossier on Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
, for the attention of Lord Halifax
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, (16 April 1881 – 23 December 1959), known as The Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and The Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was a senior British Conservative politician of the 19 ...
, the Foreign Secretary, and Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeaseme ...
, the Prime Minister. In the dossier, which was received poorly by Sir George Mounsey, the Foreign Office assistant undersecretary, who believed that it did not gel with Britain's policy of appeasement
Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governme ...
, Sinclair described Hitler as possessing the characteristics of "fanaticism, mysticism, ruthlessness, cunning, vanity, moods of exaltation and depression, fits of bitter and self-righteous resentment; and what can only be termed a streak of madness; but with it all there is a great tenacity of purpose, which has often been combined with extraordinary clarity of vision".
Sinclair became seriously ill with cancer, causing Alexander Cadogan
Sir Alexander Montagu George Cadogan (25 November 1884 – 9 July 1968) was a British diplomat and civil servant. He was Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1938 to 1946. His long tenure of the Permanent Secretary's office makes ...
to note on 19 October 1939, that he was "going downhill". On 29 October, Sinclair underwent an operation for his cancer and died on 4 November 1939, aged 66, five days before the Venlo incident.
Family
Hugh was the son of Admiral Frederick Beauchamp Paget Seymour, 1st Baron Alcester and Agnes Sinclair. In his will, Frederick Seymour, left the balance of his estate to Agnes Sinclair for her lifetime. On her death, two fifths were left to Frederick Charles Horace Sinclair and one fifth each to Hugh Francis Paget Sinclair, Claude Hamilton Sinclair and Evelyn Beauchamp Sinclair.
Hugh married, in 1907, Gertrude Attenborough and had two sons. They were divorced in 1920.
Awards and decorations
* 1911 King George V Coronation Medal
* 1916 Companion of the Order of the Bath
Companion may refer to:
Relationships Currently
* Any of several interpersonal relationships such as friend or acquaintance
* A domestic partner, akin to a spouse
* Sober companion, an addiction treatment coach
* Companion (caregiving), a caregiv ...
* 1918 3rd Class, Order of the Rising Sun
* 1918 Officer, the Legion of Honour
* 1935 Knight Commander, the Order of the Bath
* 1937 King George VI Coronation Medal
The King George VI Coronation Medal was a commemorative medal, instituted to celebrate the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
Issue
This medal was awarded as a personal souvenir of King George VI's coronation. It was awarded to th ...
[King George VI 1937 Coronation Medal Roll, Ref: QLIB5-7]
References
, -
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinclair, Hugh
1873 births
1939 deaths
Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath
World War I spies for the United Kingdom
Interwar-period spies
Royal Navy admirals
Bletchley Park people
Military personnel from Southampton
Chiefs of the Secret Intelligence Service
Directors of Naval Intelligence
People educated at Stubbington House School