Focus on
Olga Gray and the Woolwich Arsenal Spy Ring
In 1938, thanks to years of work by a remarkable female agent, MI5 ensured a package of British defence plans stayed secret.
Series
Government Code and Cypher School: Diplomatic Section: Diplomatic Decrypts Passed...
Catalogue reference: HW 37
What's it about?
HW 37
The records in this series consist of a number of decrypts of diplomatic wireless traffic passed to the Director General of the Secret Intelligence Service for distribution. The records appear to be the RES (Reserved) series of BJ decrypts or,...
Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
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HW 37
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Title (The name of the record)
- Government Code and Cypher School: Diplomatic Section: Diplomatic Decrypts Passed to the Secret Intelligence Service for Distribution
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Date (When the record was created)
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1935-1945
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Description (What the record is about)
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The records in this series consist of a number of decrypts of diplomatic wireless traffic passed to the Director General of the Secret Intelligence Service for distribution. The records appear to be the RES (Reserved) series of BJ decrypts or, alternatively, the original decrypts from which the RES series was derived. The series contains decrypts of Secret Service and Foreign Office communications.
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Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
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Former department reference (Former identifier given by the originating creator)
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Unlike most other series of reports issued from GC&GS during the war this series did not have any original departmental code
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Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
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Public Record(s)
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Language (The language of the record)
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English and German
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Creator(s) (The creator of the record)
- Government Code and Cypher School, Diplomatic Section, 1919-1946
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Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
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4 file(s)
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Access conditions (Information on conditions that restrict or affect access to the record)
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Open
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Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
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Custodial history (Describes where and how the record has been held from creation to transfer to The National Archives)
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These records were passed to the Government Communications Headquarters when it succeeded the Government Code and Cypher School in 1946.
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Accumulation dates (The dates the record was accumulated)
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1937 to 1946
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Accruals (Indicates whether the archive expects to receive further records in future)
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No future accruals expected
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Selection and destruction information (Information about how the record was selected for archiving)
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All surviving reports have been selected for permanent preservation. All Government Code and Cypher School material from the Second World War is selected without review, under section 2.2.1.3 of the PRO acquisition policy.
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Administrative / biographical background (Historical or biographical information about the creator of the record and the context of its creation)
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The Diplomatic Section was responsible for decyphering intercepted diplomatic wireless messages before and during the Second World War.
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C15597/
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
17,110 records
Within the department: HW
Records created or inherited by Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)
You are currently looking at the series: HW 37
Government Code and Cypher School: Diplomatic Section: Diplomatic Decrypts Passed to the Secret Intelligence Service for Distribution
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