12 Facts About Maurice Oldfield

Maurice Oldfield served as the seventh director of the Secret Intelligence Service, from 1973 to 1978.

Maurice Oldfield grew up at a house called Mona View in Over Haddon.

Maurice Oldfield was the first of 11 children of Joseph Oldfield, tenant farmer, and his wife, Ada Annie Dicken.

Maurice Oldfield was educated at Lady Manners School at the nearby market town of Bakewell, before winning a scholarship to the Victoria University of Manchester, where he stayed at Hulme Hall.

Maurice Oldfield graduated with a first class degree and was elected to a fellowship.

Maurice Oldfield was passed over for promotion when Sir John Rennie succeeded White in 1968.

Maurice Oldfield eventually became director when Rennie resigned in 1973; he held this post until his retirement in 1978.

Maurice Oldfield lived at Marsham Court, an apartment building in Millbank in the City of Westminster from the early 1970s until his death in 1981.

In 1979 the new prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, asked Maurice Oldfield to coordinate security and intelligence in Northern Ireland.

Maurice Oldfield is buried next to his parents and sister in St Anne's churchyard, Over Haddon, Derbyshire.

Maurice Oldfield was reputedly one of the models for John le Carre's fictional character George Smiley, though Le Carre disputes this.

The investigation ended without charges, and in 2017 Maurice Oldfield was cleared of all allegations of child abuse at Elm Guest House and elsewhere.