Place Name
James Macrae Aitken (October 27, 1908 – December 3, 1983) was a Scottish chess master who represented Great Britain in matches against the USSR and Yugoslavia. During World War II, Aitken worked in Hut 6 at Bletchley Park on solving Enigma machines used by the German army and airforce. Aside from chess his hobbies included golf, stamp collecting, bridge, and watching cricket. He died in Cheltenham in 1983, aged 75. This is part of the residential development of HMS Pembroke, an outstation of the Bletchley Park codebreaking operation during the Second World War, and the predecessor of what is now GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Susan Toms Ruislip, in The History Behind the Road Names for Pembroke Park explained that Northwood and Eastcote Historical Society successfully petitioned the developer Taylor/Wimpey to name streets here on the theme of the important codebreaking work that progressed here.