Sir Eric Malcolm Jones (27 April 1907 – 24 December 1986) was a British intelligence officer who was director of the British

signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is the act and field of intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly u ...

agency,

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters (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 United Kingdom. Primar ...

from 1952 to 1960.

Career

Born in

Buxton Buxton is a spa town in the High Peak, Derbyshire, Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, in the East Midlands region of England. It is England's highest market town, sited at some above sea level.Alston, Cumbria also claims this, but lacks a regu ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

and educated at King's School, Macclesfield only to the age 15; for twenty years he worked in the family textile business in

Macclesfield Macclesfield () is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It is sited on the River Bollin and the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east; the town lies south of Ma ...

, and then in his own textile agency. He enlisted as a reservist in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

in 1940, and was posted to Air Ministry Intelligence. Sent to

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and Bletchley Park estate, estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the S ...

in early 1942, he produced a report on the "dysfunctional"

Hut 3 Hut 3 was a section of the Government Code and Cypher School 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 of Eni ...

;

Edward Travis Sir Edward Wilfred Harry Travis (24 September 1888 – 23 April 1956) was a British cryptographer and intelligence officer, becoming the operational head of Bletchley Park during World War II, and later the head of GCHQ. Career Educated local ...

was so impressed that he was promoted to Group Captain and placed in charge of the hut. At Bletchley Park he spoke with "Cheshire vowels" and was not a "university man" so the "intellectual snobberies of Bletchley Park" worked against him; he was referred to as "The Manchester Businessman", and was believed to have something to do with biscuits! But he was a success at solving the Army-Air force feud at

. R. A. Ratcliff, ''Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra, and the End of Secure Ciphers'', Cambridge University Press, 2006 From April 1943, Jones was the head of

, which was responsible for intelligence on the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

and

Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...

. Unlike the better-known code breakers, Jones did not bring a background in mathematics or cryptography. During the early phases of D-Day preparations, "Jones was sent in to investigate and wrote a report recognising there needed to be a multi-services approach. It is a report that won the war in many ways," according to David Kenyon, research historian and author of the 2019 book ''Bletchley Park and D-Day''. After the war, Jones was sent to

Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

as representative of British Signals Intelligence. He was made deputy director of

in 1950, and director from April 1952 until 1960. Under Jones leadership, the intelligence material compiled by GCHQ was of significant benefit during the Suez Crisis of 1955; Jones received congratulations from Foreign Secretary

Selwyn Lloyd John Selwyn Brooke Selwyn-Lloyd, Baron Selwyn-Lloyd (28 July 1904 – 17 May 1978), was a British politician who served as Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom), Speaker of the House of Commons from 1971 to 1976, having previously hel ...

. In retirement he became a non-executive director of Simon Engineering.

Accolades

In April 2019, additional information about Jones' work at Bletchley Park was revealed by David Kenyon, preliminary to an exhibition, starting on 2019 the anniversary of

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

, that would highlight Jones's contribution leading up to events in June 1944. The exhibition, D-day: Interception, Intelligence, Invasion, details the preparations for the landings and reveals Jones’s essential interpretation and cataloguing system for the massive amounts of data from the team that was intercepting intelligence after cracking coded messages from the Germans using the

Enigma machine The Enigma machine is a cipher device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic, and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the W ...

s. "Jones’s skill at putting together all the information coming in was crucial", said Kenyon. Peronel Craddock, Head of Collections and Exhibitions at Bletchley Park offered this comment in an interview: "We really can say that Jones, by leading his team inside Hut 3, was at least equally important to Turing in this part of the story. And there we are talking about someone recently declared by the BBC as Britain’s leading icon".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Eric Malcolm 1907 births 1986 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Companions of the Order of the Bath Directors of the Government Communications Headquarters Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George People from Buxton Bletchley Park people People educated at The King's School, Macclesfield