Maurice Oldfield

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Early lifeEdit

Oldfield was born on 16 November 1915 at his grandmother's farm just outside Youlgrave, a village in Derbyshire. He grew up at a house called Mona View in Over Haddon. He was the first of 11 children of Joseph Oldfield, tenant farmer, and his wife, Ada Annie Dicken.<ref>Pearce, p.24</ref>

He was educated at Lady Manners School at the nearby market town of Bakewell, before winning a scholarship to the Victoria University of Manchester, where he stayed at Hulme Hall. There, he studied under the historian A. J. P. Taylor<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and specialised in medieval history. He graduated with a first class degree and was elected to a fellowship.<ref name=spectator>Template:Cite news</ref>

Intelligence careerEdit

During the Second World War, Oldfield joined the British Army. Initially a sergeant in Army Field Security (which was absorbed into the Intelligence Corps in 1940), he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps in July 1943.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref><ref name=":1" /> Most of his wartime service was in Egypt at the headquarters of SIME (Security Intelligence Middle East) in Cairo.<ref name=":1" /> This was primarily a counter-intelligence organisation, the role of which was to detect hostile agents in the region and counter their activities.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

By the end of the war, Oldfield had been promoted to major. In 1946, he was awarded an MBE.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>

After the war, Oldfield joined the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">Template:Cite ODNB</ref> From 1947 to 1949, he was deputy to Brigadier Douglas Roberts, the head of counter-intelligence, with whom he had served in Egypt during the war.<ref name=":0" /> After two postings to Singapore (the first as deputy head, the second as head of the SIS regional headquarters) he was appointed a CBE. From 1959, he spent four years as the SIS representative in Washington, D.C. This was a key post, important for the maintenance of good relations between the SIS and the Central Intelligence Agency. On his return, he became director of counter-intelligence and deputy to the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service Sir Dick White.<ref name=":2" /> Oldfield was passed over for promotion when Sir John Rennie succeeded White in 1968. He eventually became director when Rennie resigned in 1973; he held this post until his retirement in 1978.<ref name=":2" />

RetirementEdit

After retiring from MI6, Oldfield was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford until 1979.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":0" /> Oldfield lived at Marsham Court, an apartment building in Millbank in the City of Westminster from the early 1970s until his death in 1981.<ref>Pearce, p.316</ref> A large explosive device was discovered by officers from Special Branch hanging on railings outside Marsham Court on 13 October 1975. The bomb was near Lockett's restaurant which was directly under Oldfield's flat.<ref>Pearce, p.325</ref>

In 1979 the new prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, asked Oldfield to coordinate security and intelligence in Northern Ireland.<ref name=spectator/>

After his retirement as Chief of the SIS, it emerged that Oldfield was homosexual, resulting in his security clearance being withdrawn shortly before his death in 1981.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Hansard">Template:Cite hansard</ref>

Oldfield died in March 1981, aged 65. He is buried next to his parents and sister in St Anne's churchyard, Over Haddon, Derbyshire.<ref>Over Haddon webpage Template:Webarchive</ref>

LegacyEdit

Oldfield was reputedly one of the models for John le Carré's fictional character George Smiley, though Le Carré disputes this.<ref name="bbcinterview">[In an interview included in the BBC's DVD release of Smiley's People (1982, DVD release 28 June 2004), Le Carré says of Oldfield:
"…little, tubby man with spectacles. Was never the model for Smiley, I didn't meet him till after I'd invented Smiley but the press wouldn't wear that…"]</ref><ref name=":1" /> In his memoir The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life Le Carré describes a lunchtime meeting between Oldfield, himself and Alec Guinness; this was intended to provide the actor with a sense of the manner and appearance of an "old spy in retirement".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In October 2012, it was reported by the BBC's current affairs programme Panorama, that he had been linked to the Elm Guest House child abuse scandal, supposedly involving senior MPs and security personnel, by the Operation Midland investigation, and a Metropolitan Police informant. The investigation ended without charges, and in 2017 Oldfield was cleared of all allegations of child abuse at Elm Guest House and elsewhere.<ref>"MI6 head Maurice Oldfield: The spy boss 'dragged through the mud'" BBC News 7 March 2017</ref> The accuser in the Operation Midland case, Carl Beech, was subsequently convicted of making up the allegations in 2019.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

ReferencesEdit

Citations Template:Reflist

Bibliographies

Deacon, Richard (1985) 'C': A Biography of Sir Maurice Oldfield. London: Macdonald Template:ISBN
Template:Cite book

External linksEdit

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography index entry; Oldfield, Maurice; 2004

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