Bond, Jane Bond

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Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall @spyhistory 2h
Forget #BondJamesBond and his impeccable suits - check out the women of #MI5 at the end of #WW1

They had style! #spyhistory #HERstory




Jane Archer née Sissmore

Jane Archer was arguably the first woman to achieve real distinction in MI5 and Christopher Andrew writes about her at some length in ‘The Defence of the Realm’.

Jane joined as a typist/clerk in the Registry in 1916, earning 30 shillings a week. Her organisational qualities were quickly recognised and in 1923 she was awarded an MBE. Whilst still working for MI5, she decided to acquire a formal qualification and was called to the Bar in 1924. In 1928 she became Controller of the Registry. Soon after she became a desk officer heading investigations into Soviet espionage. In 1935 Vernon Kell wrote glowingly of her "brilliant and devoted efforts". However, perhaps her single greatest achievement was her interrogation in 1940 of Anatol Krivitsky, the Soviet intelligence defector. This was conducted every day for three weeks in the Langham Hotel in London. Jane’s long report of it has been described as a model of its kind and reads as if it could have been written yesterday. In the words of one of our early histories, it gave MI5 “its first insight into the machinery of the Russian Secret Service”.

From 1929 onwards Jane was in sole charge of MI5’s coverage of Soviet espionage, a subject of growing concern., This was a remarkable achievement - more so as the department at that time was hugely male-dominated.

https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/articles/Centenary+of+womens+suffrage+100+years+of+women+in+MI5+17122018101500