Reed, Henry

Henry Reed was both in 1914 in Erdington on the northern edge of Birmingham and attended University of Birmingham in the 1930s, graduating with first class honours before being awarded his Master of Arts for a much acclaimed thesis on Thomas Hardy.

Reed began his working life as a freelance journalist and had only just taken up a teaching post at King Edward VI Grammar School, Aston when the Second World War intervened. He was then conscripted into the Royal Army Ordnance Corps where he was rather incongruously given the role of drill instructor. Ill health, and perhaps the Army's realisation that Reed's linguistic abilities could be better utilised, secured his transfer to Naval Intelligence in the Code and Cypher School at Bletchley, where he was to spend the rest of the war.

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