Hugh Sinclair

Career

Sinclair was educated at Stubbington House School and joined the Royal Navy as a cadet aged 13 on 15 July 1886. He was promoted to lieutenant on 31 December 1894.

He entered the Naval Intelligence Division at the beginning of the First World War. 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 Government Code and Cypher School in 1919.

Beginning in 1919 he attempted to absorb the counterintelligence service MI5 into the SIS to strengthen Britain's efforts against Bolshevism, an idea that was finally rejected in 1925. The SIS remained small and underfunded during the interwar years.

In 1938, with a second war looming, Sinclair set up Section D, dedicated to sabotage. In spring 1938, using £6,000 of his own money, he bought Bletchley Park to be a wartime intelligence station.

Sinclair was asked in December 1938 to prepare a dossier on Adolf Hitler, for the attention of Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, and Neville Chamberlain, 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, 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 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
• 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

References

References

1. National Archives, Ref: ADM 196 141 96
2. Christopher Andrew, "Sinclair, Sir Hugh Francis Paget (1873–1939)", rev. ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008
3. National Archives, Ref: ADM 196 89 78
4. "Senior Royal Navy Appointments".
5. {{London Gazette. (5 March 1926)
6. {{London Gazette. (16 May 1930)
7. Johnson, John. (1997). "The Evolution of British Sigint: 1653–1939". HMSO.
8. By 1936, Sinclair realised that the [[Gestapo]] 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.M. R. D. Foot, "[[Dansey, Sir Claude Edward Marjoribanks]] (1876–1947)", rev. ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008
9. Michael Smith, ''Station X'', Channel 4 Books, 1998. {{ISBN. 0-330-41929-3, p. 20
10. (31 March 2005). "Spy secrets failed to win Whitehall's trust". Financial Times.
11. [http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/TheRecordsofthePermanentUnderSecretarysDepartment_1.pdf Foreign Office files] {{webarchive. link. (27 September 2007)
12. Andrew. pp. 436–438.
13. Sinclair family papers - Royal Museums Greenwich. https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-482549
14. Berrow's Worcester Journal (Worcester, England), Saturday, 18 May 1895; pg. 2; Issue 10517
15. The Times (London, England), Wednesday, Dec 22, 1920; pg. 4
16. National Archives, Ref: J 77/1688/2518. Divorce Court File: 2518.
17. Royal Navy Medal Rolls 1793-1955, Ref: ADM171-61
18. {{London Gazette. (5 June 1916)
19. {{London Gazette. (26 November 1918)
20. {{London Gazette. (10 December 1918)
21. {{London Gazette. (31 May 1935)
22. King George VI 1937 Coronation Medal Roll, Ref: QLIB5-7