A centenarian who helped translate German intelligence codes at Bletchley Park during the Second World War has died.

Sybille Higginson was 101 when she passed away at Acacia House Care Home in Tenterden on February 18. She had spent most of her adult life living in Tunbridge Wells.

She was the grand-daughter of Avison Terry Scott, the vicar of St James Church in Tunbridge Wells, who became the first Archdeacon of Tonbridge.

Her father, Arthur Avison Scott, had been appointed commander of the destroyer HMS Sybille in June 1917 and when his daughter was born on July 23, 1917, he named her after his ship.

Her niece, Judith Rowbotham, said: "She was named after a top-of-the-line battleship and that is pretty much how she led her life."

During the Second World War, she became a Wren, was promoted to Petty Officer, and served at Bletchley Park, processing data. Despite the vital nature of the work, she found life at Bletchley rather dull and after a while asked for a transfer. She was posted to Alexandria in Egypt.

Shortly after the end of war in Europe she was invalided home, seriously ill with dysentery.

She recovered and in 1948 joined MI6 and was posted to Singapore - a "hot" posting with Communists now running China and the Malayan Emergency under way in the British colony.

While there, she met and married Edward Higginson, a wine merchant whom she called Higgy. The couple moved to Kuala Lumpur, the Malayan capital. The Emergency was still on, and sometimes the couple were obliged to deliver her husband's merchandise personally. When civilian travel was banned, Mrs Higginson used her "steely gaze" to intimidate the soldiers on the road blocks to let them pass.

Professor Rowbotham said that was typical behaviour for her aunt. She said: "Her attitude always was: we have a job to do and we're going to do it."

The pair returned to the UK in 1953, first to Pluckley, where they used to have dinner parties with the literary critic John Bayley and his novelist wife Iris Murdoch, and then to Tunbridge Wells.

Her husband died in 1979. Sybille Higginson's last move was aged 95 to sheltered housing in Sherbourne Close, Tunbridge Wells, where she was the oldest inhabitant and where she was to celebrate her 100th birthday.

A formidable and feisty woman, Mrs Higginson was a cousin of the actor Richard Murdoch and was related to Amelia Scott, the suffragette.

Her niece, Judith Rowbotham is Research Professor in Law at Plymouth University. She said: "It was my privilege to be a major part of her life in her last decades, spending many weekends with her.

"She was an not an easy woman, but she was someone who once met was never forgotten.

"She had a formidable sense of duty. She was demanding of others, but even more so of herself."

Sybille Higginson leaves a son Jeremy and daughter Celia, and seven grandchildren.

Her memorial service will be at the Kent and Sussex Crematorium in Benhall Mill Road, Tunbridge Wells, TN2 5JJ on Thursday, March 14, at 1.45pm.