Claude Dansey - Early Life

Early Life

Born in 1876 into a dysfunctional family of nine children, Dansey and his siblings were subjected to military discipline at the hands of their soldier father, with punishments that included beatings even for minor misbehavior. They hated each other, as well as their father. Educated at Wellington College, he joined the British Army at the age of 20, serving in South Africa during the Boer War, because his father would not have allowed him any other vocation.

On 13 June 1898 he joined the militia as second lieutenant in the 5th and 6th battalions Lancashire Fusiliers, being promoted to lieutenant on 9 November. On 16 August 1899 he was seconded for service with the British North Borneo Company. His regular Army rank as lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers was dated 15 August 1900. On 1 March 1902 he was again seconded, as a Staff Lieutenant for Intelligence in South Africa, then on 24 June he was appointed aide-de-camp to the Brigadier-General commanding the Harrismith District, Charles James Blomfield. He was transferred from a supernumerary lieutenancy onto the establishment of his regiment on 17 September 1902. On 4 November 1904 he was seconded for "special extra-regimental employment" and on 24 October 1906 he resigned his commission. On 10 April 1907 he was promoted to captain on the Reserve of Officers.

He was recruited by MI5 and put in charge of "port intelligence" and the surveillance of civilian passengers during World War I. He was inadvertently responsible for allowing Leon Trotsky to return to Russia in 1917. Later, he joined M05 (forerunner to MI6). His talents were developed there; "on at least two occasions, assets he developed within the Irish nationalist movement were able to warn British Intelligence about plans to dynamite Buckingham Palace." Many of his sources included American industrialists, who would eventually make up much of his extensive contact list. He worked in Switzerland and the Balkans until 1919. After the war he went into business, but remained a part-time agent. After losing his money in the Wall Street Crash, Dansey worked as a full-time agent for MI6 in Italy to keep tabs on Mussolini's Fascist movement, but was unimpressed with the service, which he believed to be incompetent.