Charles Roskelly Bawden, FBA (22 April 1924 – 11 August 2016) was a professor of the Mongolian language in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London from 1970 to 1984.
Charles had one older brother, Walter Harry Bawden, who joined the Royal Navy as an engineer cadet before the outbreak of the Second World War.
He proved to be the best student on the course and after he had been commissioned he was sent to the Naval Section at the Government Code and Cypher School, Bletchley Park, where he worked on decrypted Japanese signals.
As he wrote in his draft autobiography: 'We arrived in the summer of 1944, and though the war had only just over a year to run, and our stay lasted only till the month of December 1945, this proved perhaps the most formative period of my life.
We were a compact and harmonious group of civilians, naval officers and Wrens, and the unique association we formed then has lasted, for some of us, ever since.
[4] I remember very clearly spending some days at the Supreme Court, supervising Japanese internees who were translating depositions for a war crimes trial which was in progress.
He was based at Kure, the headquarters of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force but this posting did not last long and he returned to the UK.
He resigned the fellowship in 1981 on account of his opposition to the continued membership of Anthony Blunt, who had been exposed as a Soviet spy, but he was reelected in 1985.
[9][10] In addition to having been elected a Fellow of the British Academy, he was also awarded the Order of the Pole Star by the Mongolian government.