John Cecil Masterman

Sir John Cecil Masterman OBE (12 January 1891 – 6 June 1977) was a noted academic, sportsman and author. His highest-profile role was as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, but he was also well known as chairman of the Twenty Committee, which during the Second World War ran the Double-Cross System, controlling double agents in Britain. Academic background Masterman was born in Kingston upon Thames, and educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, and Dartmouth, then at Worcester College, Oxford, where he read modern history. In 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, he was an exchange lecturer at the University of Freiburg, and as a result spent four years interned as an enemy alien in the Ruhleben internment camp. After his return from captivity, Masterman became a tutor in Modern History at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was also censor (senior tutor) from 1920 to 1926. In the 1920s he became notable as a player of cricket, tennis, and hockey, participating in international competitions, and in 1931 toured Canada with the Marylebone Cricket Club; in Stephen Potter's book Gamesmanship he was acknowledged as a master gamesman. After the Second World War Masterman returned to Oxford, becoming Provost of Worcester College (1946–61), where Ann Mitchell was his secretary until 1949. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford during 1957 and 1958. In 1959 he was knighted for his services to education.