Emily Anderson

Emily Anderson OBE (March 1891 – October 1962) was an Irish scholar of German, music historian and cryptanalyst for the British Foreign Office for almost 30 years. Anderson was born in Galway, Ireland, the daughter of physicist Alexander Anderson, a Presbyterian from Coleraine. Alexander Anderson became president of Queens College Galway (QCG) in 1899. She was educated privately and won the Browne Scholarship in 1909 at QCG, where she received a B.A. in 1911. She displayed a strong interest in the suffragette movement in Galway. After further study at universities in Berlin and Marburg, she taught for two years at Queen's College, Barbados. She then returned in 1917 to Galway where she was appointed the first Professor of German at University College Galway. Anderson resigned from her position in 1920. She moved to London and immediately joined the Foreign Office, where she worked as a cryptanalyst until her retirement. Whilst lodging with the family of Patricia Bartley, Anderson recruited her to work at the Government Code and Cypher School (the forerunner of GCHQ). Between 1940 and 1943 Anderson was seconded to the War Office and posted to Cairo: she was appointed OBE for the work she carried out in the Middle East. She retired from the Foreign Office in 1951.