|
|
|
|
|
|
Government Communications Headquarters
GCHQ is one of Britain's three major Intelligence Agencies. GCHQ works
in partnership with the Security Service (MI5)
and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)
to protect UK national security interests.
GCHQ is responsible for providing Signals Intelligence (SIGINT)
and information assurance.
Its main customers are the UK Government and the British Armed Forces.
GCHQ was founded during World War I as
the Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS).
During World War II (WWII), GC&CS
established a major codebreaking operation at
Bletchley Park (BP),
which is now a museum.
Immediately after the war, in 1946, it was renamed GCHQ and relocated to
Eastcote. In 1951, GCHQ moved to a new premises in Cheltenham, where the organization
is still located today.
|
|
|
Related subjects on this website
|
|
|
|
The image on the right shows the current GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham (UK)
at the point where the building was nearly finished in 2003.
The building is nicknamed 'the Doughnut'.
|
|
|
|
GCHQ has offices at the following locations:
|
Cheltenham Headquarters Scarborough Signals intelligence site Bude Telecommunications data collection site Manchester High-tech offices London National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) 1
|
-
In the past, GCHQ also used (secret) offices on
Palmer Street, where they resided for 66 years [5].
|
1921 Hugh Sinclair (1873-1939)
Alistair Denniston (1881-1961) - operational head 1942 Edward Travis (1888-1956) 1952 Eric Jones (1907-1986) 1960 Clive Loehnis (1902-1992) 1965 Leonard Hooper (1914-1994) 1973 Arthur 'Bill' Bonsall (1917-2014) 1978 Brian John Maynard Tovey (1926-2015) 1983 Peter Marychurch (1927-2017) 1989 John Anthony Adye (1939) 1996 David Omand (1947) 1998 Kevin Tebbit (1946) 1998 Francis Richards (1945) 2003 David Pepper (1948) 2008 Iain Lobban (1960) 2014 Robert Hannigan (1965) 2017 Jeremy Fleming 2023 Anne Keast-Butler (1970)
|
Although GCHQ is a secret - and therefore rather closed- organisation,
they present themselves to the general public every now and then, and provide
information about their work, their responsibilities and their history.
GCHQ was, for example, one of the major sponsors of the
Enigma Reunion 2009 at
Bletchley Park, where they exhibited a number of
rare cipher machines and methods.
➤ More about the Enigma Reunion 2009
|
|
|
|
|
|
Any links shown in red are currently unavailable.
If you like the information on this website, why not make a donation?
© Crypto Museum. Last changed: Friday, 17 April 2026 - 10:17 CET.
|
 |
|
|
|
![People at the GCHQ stand at the Enigma Reunion 2009. Copyright Kevin Coleman [3].](img/500395/000/full.jpg)
![GCHQ stand at Enigma Reunion 2009. Copyright Frederic Andre [2].](img/500395/002/thumbnail.jpg "image # 500395/002")
![People at the GCHQ stand at the Enigma Reunion 2009. Copyright Kevin Coleman [3].](img/500395/000/thumbnail.jpg "image # 500395/000")
![People at the GCHQ stand at the Enigma Reunion 2009. Copyright Kevin Coleman [3].](img/500395/001/thumbnail.jpg "image # 500395/001")
![GCHQ stand at Enigma Reunion 2009. Copyright Frederic Andre [2].](img/500395/002/full.jpg)
![People at the GCHQ stand at the Enigma Reunion 2009. Copyright Kevin Coleman [3].](img/500395/001/full.jpg)