Dorothy Constance Galton

Dorothy Constance Galton (14 October 1901 – 27 August 1992) was a British university administrator who was suspected by the British security services of being a Russian spy. Born in north London into a family with strong left-wing links, she was personal secretary to Count Mihaly Karolyi, exiled socialist president of Hungary, and later became secretary to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London.

Galton joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, travelled several times to Russia, and Kim Philby, who was actually working for the KGB, took an interest in her. She was under some form of surveillance for much of her working life but no conclusive evidence of espionage was ever found against her. In retirement she became an expert in beekeeping and wrote several books on the subject.

Dorothy Galton was born on 14 October 1901 at 66 Rathcoole Avenue,Hornsey, London, to Frank Wallace (or Wallis) Galton and his wife, Jessie Jane Townsend Galton, née Cottridge. Her father was secretary to Sidney and Beatrice Webb and later, the Fabian Society. She had an older sister Beatrice Jessie Galton. At the time of the 1911 census, the family were living at 49 Bounds Green Road, Wood Green, London. She was educated at home and then at a secondary school in Wood Green. She attended Bedford College, the University of London's college for women, but soon left and did not earn a degree. She studied Slavonic languages privately. As a young woman she underwent an operation that prevented her from having children.

Galton's early working life was as an assistant in the research and information department of the Labour Party from 1920–25 and then in 1925-26 as private secretary to Count Mihaly Karolyi, the exiled socialist president of Hungary, during which time she travelled with him and his wife to France. It was around this time that Galton first came to official notice after her work for Karolyi was noted in a report to Scotland Yard from Paris. It seems that after she stopped working for Karolyi she was occupied translating from French to English, Émile Faguet's Politiques et moralistes du XIXe siècle which was published by Ernest Benn in 1928 as Politicians & moralists of the nineteenth century in their Library of European Political Thought.

...
Wikipedia