‘National saviour’ Sir Hugh denied plaque

HE RAN MI6 for 16 years and established with his own money the code breaking unit at Bletchley Park that altered the course of the war.

Yet English Heritage has concluded Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair is not historically significant enough to merit his own blue plaque.

Minutes obtained under freedom of information laws show that Sir Hugh, the second head of the Secret Intelligence Service, was passed over for shortlisting at a meeting of English Heritage’s blue plaque panel.

At the same meeting, the group agreed instead to put forward Ronnie Scott, the jazz musician who died in 1996, and to further consider the merits of Clara Schumann, the German composer, and Oliver Heaviside, a recluse on the fringes of the scientific community who developed electromagnetic theory in the 19th century.

The refusal to give Sinclair a plaque has infuriated his supporters. Bletchley Park has urged English Heritage to rethink its decision while Tim Collins, the former colonel who led troops into battle in the Iraq War in 2003, said Sinclair had helped to save the nation and branded as nonsense a plan to instead give the honour to Ronnie Scott.

Sinclair’s supporters wanted the plaque at Queen Anne’s Gate in central London, which was his official residence and linked to MI6’s headquarters by a tunnel. He ran MI6 from 1923 until his death in 1939, having put in place the Special Operations Executive.

Colonel Collins said: “Hugh Sinclair’s foresight arguably saved the nation... so that people can indulge themselves to put up blue plaques for a jazz musician or the wife of a German composer or a maverick scientist.”

English Heritage has said the decision to turn down the request for Sinclair had been made after the panel concluded his “overall historical significance was not quite of the order required”.