Julia Pirie (8 July 1918 – 2 September 2008) was a British spy working for

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...

from the 1950s through her retirement in the 1990s. She was initially recruited to and primarily involved in spying on the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

. In 1978, as that organisation had lost power, she withdrew from it and focused on other roles.

Early years and MI5 recruitment

Born in Harbury on 8 July 1918, Pirie lost her father Allen Grant Pirie in 1923 to wounds he had sustained in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. She resettled with her mother Elizabeth Marie Pirie in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

, her mother's birthplace. She returned to her native country in 1939 to join the

Auxiliary Territorial Service The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS; often pronounced as an acronym) was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 Februa ...

(ATS) where she worked as a driver in England and later in Europe. She then worked for the Duchess of Atholl. The duchess was a fierce opponent of

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

control in Europe. Pirie also joined the

First Aid Nursing Yeomanry The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps) (FANY (PRVC)) is a British independent all-female registered charity formed in 1907 and active in both nursing and intelligence work during the World Wars. Its members wear a mili ...

(FANY). During the war FANY had been a recruiting ground for the

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

and MI5 also may have used them. In any case, Julia joined MI5 and infiltrated the Communist Party as a typist.

Inside the Communist Party

In Pirie's obituary in ''The Daily Telegraph'', her obituarist writes that she was "a small, dumpy woman with the appearance of a confirmed and rather matronly spinster", whose "unassuming demeanour masked a sharp intellect and the powers of observation essential for the task of a secret agent." She worked her way into the inner circles of the party, eventually working directly under party secretary

John Gollan John Gollan (2 April 1911 – 5 September 1977) was a British political leader who was general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from 1956 to 1975. Gollan was born in Edinburgh, where he grew up and took his first job as a ...

. This put her in a position to pass information from Gollan's office to her MI5 handlers. ''The Telegraph'' speculates that she may have been the inside agent who provided crucial information for two important MI5 operations described in Peter Wright's book ''

Spycatcher ''Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer'' (1987) is a memoir written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. He drew on his own experiences and research into ...

''. In 1978, Pirie retired from the Party. By this time it had been much weakened by Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

in 1968. The Party paid her pension until her death.

Later assignments and retirement

Although she had left the Communist Party, Pirie did not retire from MI5, and her next assignment was against the

Provisional IRA The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...

. She travelled to various European countries playing the role of a tourist but in fact collecting information about them. On one occasion, still playing a tourist, she rented a flat in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, just below an IRA safe flat. When authorities became concerned about the wireless emissions of her equipment, they raided her flat. Although the authorities were satisfied, there was a risk of the IRA having noticed, and the operation was abandoned. After retiring from active operations in the 1990s, she lectured to groups of MI5 trainees and to the police.

References

External links

* Stevenson is an executive of the British Communist Party. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pirie, Julia 1918 births 2008 deaths English spies Communist Party of Great Britain members People from Warwickshire MI5 personnel First Aid Nursing Yeomanry people