Edgar Williams

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Brigadier Sir Edgar Trevor Williams (20 November 1912 – 26 June 1995) was a British historian and Army military intelligence officer who played a significant role in the Second Battle of El Alamein in the Second World War. He was one of the few officers who was privy to the Ultra secret, and served on the staff of Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery as his intelligence officer for the rest of the war.

A graduate of Merton College, Oxford, where he obtained a First in modern history in 1934, Williams was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 1st King's Dragoon Guards in June 1939. In February 1941, the troop he was commanding was the first British unit to encounter the German Afrika Korps. He was recruited to work in military intelligence by Brigadier Francis de Guingand, who later became Montgomery's chief of staff. As an historian, Williams was accustomed to integrating different sources of information to build up a larger picture. He integrated information from Ultra with that from other sources such as the Y service, prisoner of war interrogations, aerial reconnaissance and ground reconnaissance behind enemy lines by the Long Range Desert Group.

After the war Williams became a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and the Warden of Rhodes House, Oxford, and editor of the ''Dictionary of National Biography''. As secretary to the Rhodes Trustees, he was concerned with the selection and subsequent well-being of nearly two hundred Rhodes scholars each year.