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Robin Denniston (December 25 1926 –— April 24 2012) was an influential publisher associated with several leading authors. He was said to be like a "kindly vicar" but he he had a highly trained business mind. He worked for Collins, Hodder and Stoughton, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, Thomson Publications and Oxford University Press. While still in publishing, he went through training as a clergyman in the Church of England. Eventually he resigned to become the minister at Great Tew in Oxfordshire. In the early 1990s he moved to Scotland but they persuaded him to return to Great Tew for a second term of office.

Career

He began as a trainee with Collins in Glasgow and was rapidly promoted to head office. There he worked as an editor for nine years. He was the first person at Collins to read the first Jennings at School book by Anthony Buckeridge. His laughter was so persistent that his colleagues wondered whether he was all right.

In 1960 he joined Hodders, where he became first Editorial Director and then Managing Director. He bought Eric Segal’s Love Story and commissioned Anthony Sampson to write his Anatomy of Britain. He poached John le Carre from Victor Gollancz when le Carre was under critical attack. His reward was to publish Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

In 1973 he joned Weidenfeld as deputy chairman but then moved to 1975 to Thomson Publications to chair subsidiaries including: Michael Joseph, Thomas Nelson, George Rainbird and Sphere Books. Not enjoying this, he moved in 1978 to OUP.

At OUP he made important changes. He introduced short run printing. He moved the typesetting to India. He recruited new young editors and gave them the power to make big decisions. He steered away from general publishing to academic and scientific publishing.

One very special project was a personal one. Denniston’s father was Commander Alistair Denniston who during the First World War had served as "watch-keeper" for the British Government's "Signals Intelligence Centre", decrypting, translating, assessing and processing intercepted German signals. Between the wars he set up and ran the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). In 1939 he travelled to Poland, where invasion was imminent, and was given details of the Polish research which soon became the bedrock of the code-breaking work at Bletchley Park, which he established. Then in February 1942 he was suddenly replaced. Although he was given a job in a civil and diplomatic division in London, it seems that his salary was drastically reduced.

His son researched and wrote an account of his father’s life: Thirty Secret Years (2007). This brought posthumous recognition of his father’s work.

Early Life

Robin Denniston was born on Christmas Day 1926 and brought up in London, Bletchley and Worcestershire. He was twelve when the war broke out. In 1941 he went to Westminster School, where he was a scholar, captain of cricket and a promising pianist. In his second year the school was evacuated to the Hereford/Worcester border and his father was demoted. His school fees were paid by friends but his sister had to leave her school. He went on to read Classics at Christ Church, Oxford. After National Service, he began his publishing career.

Publications

Churchill's Secret War: Diplomatic Decrypts, the Foreign Office and Turkey 1942-44 (1997)

Trevor Huddleston: A Life (1999)

Anatomy of Scotland (1992, with Magnus Linklater)

References

Category:British book publishers (people) Category:People educated at Westminster School, London Category:Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Category:1926 births Category:2012 deaths