50th Anniversary Lecture

lecture By Sir David Pepper, former Director General of GCHQ
Thursday 15 June at 7pm

As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations marking the founding of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Sir David Pepper KCMG, former Director General of GCHQ, will be giving a lecture on how technological innovation has shaped secret intelligence.

This fascinating and insightful lecture, entitled ‘Engineering Espionage’, will be held at Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron on Thursday evening, 15th June.

Sir David was the Director General of GCHQ (the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham) from 2003 to 2008.  He took a degree in Physics and a DPhil in Theoretical Physics at St John’s College Oxford, and joined GCHQ in 1972.  He spent almost all his career there, working at various times in intelligence production, cryptanalysis, finance, planning and HR. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 2005.

Since retiring from GCHQ, Sir David has acted as a consultant on cybersecurity and national security issues in both public and private sectors.  He was also appointed Chairman of the Board of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory based at Porton Down in August 2014.

Tea and coffee will be served from 6.30pm ahead of the lecture, which starts at 7pm. It will be followed by a question and answer session at 7.45pm.  The evening is free of charge but tickets must be booked in advance via www.ironbridge.org.uk.

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