Martin Furnival Jones Explained

Honorific Prefix:Sir
Martin Furnival Jones
Allegiance:United Kingdom
Service:MI5
Rank:Director General of MI5
Awards:CBE (1957)
Knight Bachelor (1967)
Birth Date:7 May 1912
Birth Place:Chipping Barnet, England
Death Place:Wothorpe, England
Nationality:British
Occupation:Intelligence officer, solicitor
Alma Mater:Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Sir Edward Martin Furnival Jones CBE (7 May 1912 – 1 March 1997) was Director General of MI5, the United Kingdom's internal security service, from 1965 until 1972.

Career

Born in High Barnet[1] and educated at Highgate School, Furnival Jones was a Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge graduate, having read modern and medieval languages, as well as law.[2]

He was admitted as a solicitor in England in 1937, joining the leading City of London law firm Slaughter and May. When the Second World War broke out, Furnival Jones was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps, transferring to the Security Service, MI5, in 1941.[3]

He was Director-General of MI5 from 1965 to 1972.[4]

Personal life

Jones resided in the Hampstead Garden Suburb. He was a tennis player and bird watcher and loved to perform in amateur theatre in both the local groups, including the Play and Pageant Union and Speedwell Players. It was during a production of I Remember Mama that he first met his wife, Margaret.[5]

Notes and References

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/16/world/martin-f-jones-84-ex-director-of-britain-s-counterspy-agency.html Obituary: Sir Martin Furnival Jones
  2. Web site: Jones, Sir (Edward) Martin Furnival (1912–1997), intelligence officer and civil servant. 2021-04-15. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. en. 10.1093/ref:odnb/65200.
  3. Book: West, Nigel. The A to Z of British Intelligence. 2 September 2009. Scarecrow Press. 9780810870284. en.
  4. Andrew, p. 853
  5. Nora Packer, writing in Garden Suburb Theatre newsletter edition 47, May 1997