Sir Brian John Maynard Tovey KCMG (born 15 April 1926) is a former director of the British signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, a post he held from 1978 to 1983.

Career

Born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Tovey was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford

St Edward's School (Oxford)

St. Edward's School is a co-educational independent boarding school located in Oxford, England. The school is located on the Woodstock Road in the north of the city close to the suburb of Summertown. In 2007 it was voted by the Country Life Magazine as number one in the top ten schools in the UK...

, St Edmund Hall, Oxford

St Edmund Hall, Oxford

St Edmund Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Better known within the University by its nickname, "Teddy Hall", the college has a claim to being "the oldest academical society for the education of undergraduates in any university"...

 and the School of Oriental and African Studies

School of Oriental and African Studies

The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...

, where he studied modern Chinese. After national service in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, Tovey joined GCHQ in 1950. He was thus the first GCHQ director not to have worked at Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...

. He was knighted in 1980.

Tovey's tenure as Director at GCHQ was not an easy one: industrial action in 1981 led later to the banning of trades unions from GCHQ. The decision was also taken to inaugurate the controversial Zircon

Zircon

Zircon is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates. Its chemical name is zirconium silicate and its corresponding chemical formula is ZrSiO4. A common empirical formula showing some of the range of substitution in zircon is 1–x4x–y...

 project.

Following his retirement from GCHQ, Tovey became a consultant advising firms including Plessey

Plessey

The Plessey Company plc was a British-based international electronics, defence and telecommunications company. It originated in 1917, growing and diversifying into electronics. It expanded after the second world war by acquisition of companies and formed overseas companies...

 on dealing with Government departments. He served during this time as the chair of the Joint Electronics and Telecommunications Security Export Control Committee (JETSECC) of the Federation of the Electronics Industry. Later he was the founding chairman of the UK Mind Sports Olympiad, and he is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Learning Skills Foundation.

Tovey maintains an interest in Italian art of the 13th to 17th centuries. He is currently working on a biography of the life and times of Filippo Baldinucci

Filippo Baldinucci

Filippo Baldinucci was an Italian art historian and biographer.-Life:Baldinucci is considered among the most significant Florentine biographers/historians of the artists and the arts of the Baroque period...

. It is alleged that while he was Director of GCHQ, Tovey shared this interest with the head of the French SDECE, Alexandre de Marenches

Alexandre de Marenches

Count Alexandre de Marenches was a French military officer.During the Second World War, Count de Marenches was aide de camp to General Juin...

, and as a result GCHQ gained valuable intelligence on the war in Afghanistan.