Ellis, Kenneth. The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in Administrative History. London: Oxford University Press, 1958. Ellis, Kenneth. The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in Administrative History. London: Oxford University Press, 1958.
Pforzheimer: "The ... 'secret office' of the 18th century British post office ... intercept[ed] mail and ... decipher[ed] codes." Official deciphering remained in the hands of one family for over 100 years.
Exelby, James. "The Secret Service Major and the Invasion of Egypt." History Today 56, no. 11 (Nov. 2006): 40-41.
The author "unearths the activities of a forgotten British spy [Maj. Alexander Bruce Tulloch] whose documents and memoir provide a fascinating insight into the circumstances surrounding the British occupation of Egypt" in 1882.
Ferguson,
Thomas G. British Military Intelligence, 1870-1914: The Development of a Modern Intelligence Organization. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984.
Pforzheimer: "This first scholarly history of a modern military intelligence department to be published in the United States is an excellent reference source, well annotated and indexed, with an extensive bibliography."
Ferreiro, Larrie D. "Spies versus Prizes: Technology Transfer between Navies in the Age of Trafalgar." Mariner's Mirror 93, no. 1 (2007): 16-27.
Ferris, John. "Before 'Room 40': The British Empire and Signals Intelligence, 1898-1914." Journal of Strategic Studies 12, no. 4 (Dec. 1989): 431-457.
According to Sexton, this article discusses Britain's "lack of preparation to exploit the potential value of Signals Intelligence prior to World War I."
Ferris, John. "Intelligence and Diplomatic Signalling during Crises: The British Experience of 1877-78, 1922 and 1938." Intelligence and National Security 21, no. 5 (Oct. 2006): 675-696.
The author of these "case studies of playing chicken" provides some intriguing thoughts. These include: "The stategic literature assumes crises are there to be managed. In fact, they are something to survive.... Crises cause systems failures on all sides.... Crises are dominated by emotion, factionalization, missed signals and unintended consequences."
Foreign and Commonwealth
Office. Library and Records Department. Historical Branch. "My Purdah
Lady": The Foreign Office and the Secret Vote, 1782-1909. History
Notes No. 7. London: LRD/FCO, 1994.
Aldrich, I&NS 10.4: This is an "essay on the important but neglected subject of the financing and resourcing of British secret service from the Civil List Act of 1782 through the beginning of modern secret service in 1909."
Fraser, Peter. Intelligence
of the Secretaries of State and Their Monopoly of Licensed News, 1660-1688.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.
Constantinides: "The text and the appendices give good details about British intelligence activities of the time."
Fritz, Paul. "The
Anti-Jacobite Intelligence System of the English Ministers, 1715-1745."
Historical Journal 16 (1973): 265-289.
Fergusson, Thomas G. British Military Intelligence, 1870-1914: The Development of a Modern Intelligence Organization. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984.
Pforzheimer: "This first scholarly history of a modern military intelligence department to be published in the United States is an excellent reference source, well annotated and indexed, with an extensive bibliography."
Grayson, William C.
Chicksands: A Millennium of History. [UK]: Shefford Press, 1992.
Surveillant 2.6: The "later chapters include ... contributions of the RAF Y [Intercept] Service to the allied victory" in World War II "and Chicksands various secret missions.... [T]he 'American era' which began in 1950 ... revolves around the USAF Communications Security units."
Grob-Fitzgibbon, Benjamin. "Neglected Intelligence: How the British Government Failed to Quell the Ulster Volunteer Force, 1912-1914." Journal of Intelligence History 6, no. 1 (Summer 2006). [http://www.intelligence-history.org/jih/journal.html]
Harris, J.R. Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer: Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
Harris, Stephen M.
British Military Intelligence in the Crimean War, 1854-1856. London & Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999.
Lambert, Times Literary Supplement, 12 Mar. 1999, finds that "Harris demonstrates that ... Lord Raglan, far from being the elderly, bumbling aristocratic lightweight of popular literature, was a calculating and sophisticated commander who relied on an effective intelligence network.... [B]ehind their carefully contrived aristocratic hauteur, British generals took a thoroughly modern approach to their work, one in which intelligence played a critical part."
For Baumgart, I&NS 14.3, this work "is a welcome addition to the vast literature on the Crimean War." Its focus is on how the British expeditionary force in the Crimea gathered its intelligence on the Russian army.
Herman, RUSI Journal, Feb. 2000, also welcomes this "revision of the stereotype of British intellegence buffoonery." But, for him, "the book is [also] full of material with a bearing on modern intelligence doctrine."
While Wetzel, JMH, Oct. 1999, appreciates the "compelling portrait" that the author draws of Charles Cattley and is in general favorably inclined toward the work, he also notes the "stiff and flat" prose and the "congested" narrative.
Kruh, Cryptologia 24.1, notes the author's suggestion that "the American Civil War offers the best comparison for measuring the quality of British intelligence in the Crimea. In both cases intelligence systems evolved from nothing."
Haynes, Alan. Invisible
Power: The Elizabethan Secret Services, 1570-1603. London: Sutton, 1992.
New York: St. Martin's, 1992.
Surveillant 2.5 sees Invisible Power as a "rather slim presentation." Pryor, Spectator, 20 Jun. 1992, says that "[f]or those wishing to learn more about spying and counterspying during the period, about plots and counterplots, and rivalry in high places, Alan Haynes's survey can be recommended."
Hobman, D.L. Cromwell's
Master Spy: A Study of John Thurloe. London: Chapman & Hall, 1961.
Constantinides: The author "conveys the story of Thurloe's intelligence and security activities on behalf of Cromwell and his regime and describes his work as the oraganizer and brain of the widespread espionage system without which, some experts contend, Cromwell would not have survived.... The book could have used an index."
See also, Philip Aubrey, Mr. Secretary Thurloe (London: Athlone, 1990).
Hogge, Alice. God's Secret Agents: Queen Elizabeth's Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot. London: HarperCollins, 2005.
Plot and counterplot in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. To Foot, I&NS 21.6 (Dec. 2006), the author provides "that excellent rarity, a work of readable scholarship." The reviewer in Publisher's Weekly (via Amazon.com) sees this as a "sometimes dry and sometimes lively popular religious history."
Hutchinson, Robert. Elizabeth's Spy Master: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England. London: Phoenix, 2006.
Dafforne, I&NS 22.6 (Dec. 2007), uses such terms as "lucid account" and "fine narrative" to describe this work. However, the reviewer would have preferred that the author have paid more attention "to major historical events." In addition, "Hutchinson tends to draw comparisons with the twenty-first century too readily and too frequently." However, these are "minor faults in an otherwise excellent book."
Johnston, Otto W. "British
Espionage and Prussian Politics in the Age of Napoleon." Intelligence
and National Security 2, no. 2 (Apr. 1987): 230-244.
Kennedy, Padraic C. "The Secret Service Department: A British Intelligence Bureau in Mid-Victorian London, September 1867 to April 1868." Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 100-127.
"Although the authorities had seriously overestimated the threats to England's security in late 1867, their efforts to establish and disband the Secret Service Department represented a pragmatic approach to the perceived crisis."
Le Caron, Henri [pseud., Thomas Miller Beach]. Twenty-Five Years in the Secret Service: The Recollections of a Spy. London: Heinemann, 1892. 10th ed. London: EP Publishing, 1974.
See J.A. Cole, Prince of Spies: Henri Le Caron (London: Faber & Faber, 1984).
Canadian Security Intelligence Service. "History of CSIS." [http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/en/about_us/history_artifacts/history/brf_pics_003.asp]
"Henri Le Caron, born Thomas Miller Beach, was a Civil War veteran recruited by the British in 1867 to spy on the Fenian movement in the United States. Le Caron was arguably one of the most successful covert agents to work for the Canadian government."
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