Sir Alexander Maxwell GCB KBE (9 March 1880 – 1 July 1963) was a British civil servant notable for his service as Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office from 1938 to 1948.

[1] Jenifer Margaret Hart, Maxwell's private secretary from 1939, stated that he had a fervent belief that the Home Office had important duty to safeguard liberty.

[4] Years later, Sir Samuel, then Viscount Templewood, would write: Alexander Maxwell in particular helped me with wise and stimulating advice.

How lucky I was to have him!… Unruffled amidst all the alarms and excursions that periodically shake a Ministry of public order, he possessed the imperturbable assurance essential to a department of historic traditions.During the Second World War he worked to try and trammel, as much as possible, the state's restrictions on civil liberties.

[1] Jenifer Margaret Hart, Maxwell's private secretary from 1939, stated that he had a fervent belief that the Home Office had important duty to safeguard liberty.

[4] On 10 July 1940 the Security Executive, in response to communist propaganda against various government departments, approached the Home Office to consider the drafting of a new defence regulation making it an offence to attempt to subvert duly constituted authority.