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#Wednesday #WomeninBritishIntel Freya Stark (1893-1993) Travel explorer, writer, photographer, #spy working in the #MiddleEast during the interwar period & SWW. The only historian to-date to successfully grapple with her secret service work is @adhistorian Please read his book!
It is unclear as to who Freya Stark worked for: SIS, MOI, FO. She may have served more than one but according to @adhistorian she was 'typical of SIS operatives in the Middle East...who maintained this kind of ambivalent cover-within-cover after leaving or joining SIS'...
Freya Stark worked for the MOI during the SWW. MOI's Middle East work originated with SIS at Electra House (Department EH) alongside Section D of MI6, later absorbed by SOE. @adhistorian suggests that her secret work for SIS can be dated back to the 1920s & has been overlooked
Freya Stark was an effective scout 'travelling for the government'. She never disclosed her secret work & when asked on her travels as to whether she was a British spy, her response was always that she was just a mere traveller & nothing more than just a woman ...
Stark's camouflage was perfect. She was a master at 'hiding in plain sight'. A confident, intelligent & versatile hard worker, Stark certainly stood out amongst a largely male crowd, even more so in the deserts of the Middle East. She shared a deep knowledge of the Arab world..
alongside contemporaries such as Gertrude Bell. Stark survived many challenges during her early years. At the age of 12 she was subjected to facial skin grafts after losing her right ear & sustaining serious injuries to her head when her hair became caught in textile machinery...
Freya Stark received a convent education in Dronero, close to the Franco-Italian border. She was fluent in English, Italian, German & Arabic. She read History at Bedford College, London but did not complete her degree as #WW1 broke out. She returned to #Italy & then served as a..
..VAD nurse on the Austro-Italian front north of #Trieste on account of her Italian. Perhaps her first encounter with the secret world came in 1916-17, when between nursing jobs; she worked in the War Censor's Office as an intelligence linguist identifying encrypted messages...
Freya Stark was recruited for this post by her academic mentor at London University & family friend, William Paton Ker, who engaged in secret work for the British government. During the 1920s, Stark was recruited by MI6 +/or MI4 who most definitely provided her with training for-
...overseas espionage work. Her mentor, Ker, had prepared Stark well, supervising some of her first European pre-WW1 climbs. She mastered Arabic, and skilled-up in the areas of Arab history & cartography. In late 1927, she undertook her first overseas mission to the Levant...
...In hostile territory & accompanied only by a female friend & a male guide, she proved herself professionally. After this, she went on alone to map territory in Persia & discover new topographical features such as entire mountains which she successfully scaled...
Freya Stark's cartographic intelligence was passed on to military attaches in the area suggesting her inter-war intelligence gathering work was done under MI6's remit. Further evidence can be found in her social relationships during #WW2 dubbed 'The Baghdad Set' by @adhistorian
In 1947 Stark married Stewart Perowne, whom she had been infatuated with in Baghdad - Perowne headed an embassy department that served as cover for Stark & others such as Bishop. The marriage failed as Stark was unaware that Perowne was gay. She also did not adjust well to being-
... the wife of a civil servant - a far cry from her wartime intelligence activities. They did not divorce but separated in 1952. They had no children. Stark returned to Italy & lived to the age of 100. She was a remarkable woman who took full advantage of her sex, writing...
..'The great & almost only comfort about being a woman', she observed after one of many crass encounters with male officialdom, 'is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is & no one is surprised.' Freya Stark lived a daring & full life. Her mastery at ...
... maintaining cover remained steadfast until her death in 1993, with her secret work during the interwar period remaining tantalisingly beyond the grasp of most biographers & historians @adhistorian is the only one to date who successfully tackles this area of her life.
'The past...lives with us in never-ending variation, as if it were a magic carpet on which we travel through the middle air...Our future is uncontrollable if we are unable to read our past' - Freya Stark, Dust in the Lion's Paw (1961)
I hope you enjoyed this folks - stay tuned for more #WomenInBritishIntel next week!
