page_title: Anne Dawson (secret agent)
section_title: First World War
hierarchical_section_title: Anne Dawson (secret agent) / First World War
caption_attribution_description: English: An original photo of Anne Dawson's insignia, taken by family in Melbourne, Australia in 2017.
context_page_description: Anne Dawson MBE was a British secret agent in occupied Belgium in WW1. She worked for the GHQ Wallinger London unit in 1917-18, reporting to Ivone Kirkpatrick who was based in Rotterdam. Anne Dawson was one of only two known British female agents operating behind German lines in Flanders, the other being Edith Cavell who had been a long time resident of Belgium prior to WW1.
context_section_description: At some stage during the First World War she joined an intelligence unit that reported to GHQ Army, for covert work behind enemy lines. As a good linguist and a natural Dutch-speaker she would have been an obvious candidate for operations in Flemish-speaking Belgium. Her unit, named ‘Wallinger London’, operated at first in Britain, interviewing both refugees and ordinary travellers arriving daily in Tilbury, and from 1917 was active in Rotterdam.
  In a conversation with her eldest son just before her death in 1989, Anne confirmed that her work for Wallinger consisted of making ‘enquiries from refugees and locals about German troop movements to and from the front lines’, and making ‘reports’ that she then handed to her ‘liaison officers (Ivone, later Sir Ivone) Kirkpatrick and (George) Bennett’, at the Dutch border. 
  That type of work would have carried a huge risk for Anne. Getting caught as a British citizen doing covert work in German occupied territories would have meant almost certain execution. It was unusual for the British intelligence services to use British citizens behind the German lines in the First World War. Edith Cavell was a rare other example, but nurse Cavell had lived in Belgium since well before the war. 
  British intelligence services normally preferred to use locals for such work. The high level of danger that Anne was exposed to, especially as a British national and non-resident, would have been one reason for her being awarded the insignia of a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the New Year's honours of 1920. The then still military award had been created in 1917 to recognise outstanding service of civilians and non-combatant officers to the military.
caption: The insignia of the Military MBE Anne received in Koblenz, Germany in 1920.
  
    Donated to the Imperial War Museum London by Anne Dawson's family in July 2017
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