Dorothy 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.

Early life

Dorothy Galton was born on 14 October 1901 at 66 Rathcoole Avenue, 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.

Early career Galton's early working life was as an assistant in the research and information department of the Labour Party from 1920 to 1925 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 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.

In 1928, Galton became secretary to professor Bernard Pares at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), at that time part of King's College London. Later, Galton's tenure at SSEES included the directorships of William Rose and George Bolsover. Mirsky's letters to Galton from Moscow from 1932, when he returned to the USSR, to 1937, when he was arrested, were published in the Oxford Slavonic Papers in 1996. Mirsky died in a gulag in 1939.

Political activity

From 1932 to 1936, Galton was an active member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in the St Pancras branch. and made an additional visit in 1935–36 with Bernard Pares who wrote it up in Moscow admits a critic (1936). From 1936, however, she stopped her political work in favour of "special research work", apparently on the orders of senior party officials. In 1941, Galton organised a Slavonic studies summer school in Oxford that was attended by 78 students. The summer schools continued in various location in Britain until 1950 when the last one was held in Paris. It is not clear whether Galton organised them all. From May to July 1945 she toured American universities following an invitation from the Rockefeller Foundation and subsequently prepared a report for them on the state of Slavic studies in the universities of the United States, the manuscript of which is held in the SSEES library along with a 59-page diary of her trip. Through the interception of Galton's mail, which continued until 1952, they learned that she had rejoined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1950. Her mother died in February 1953 and around this time she seems to have come into some money. The security services noted that she had acquired a cottage near Windsor and "She goes down to it every weekend on her mini-motorcycle." Later they noted that she was moving to a cottage in Parndon, Essex, which was part-owned by her brother-in-law, Albert Evans, the Labour Party member of Parliament for South West Islington, and she had "disposed of her motor-scooter and invested in a car."

Character Opinions were divided over Galton's character. She was described by Karl Showler of the International Bee Research Association as having a gift for languages and administration, and a "warm personality",

Retirement and death Galton retired from SSEES in December 1961. She was replaced by former army officer and alumnus of SSEES, Ronald Whitworth. She spent her retirement in Norfolk and devoted herself to the study of beekeeping, particularly in Russia, an interest that she first developed in the 1950s. In 1971 the Bee Research Association published her book A survey of a thousand years of beekeeping in Russia, with a foreword by Professor Robert E.F. Smith. In 1987, The International Bee Research Association awarded her honorary membership. Her second book, The bee-hive: An enquiry into its origin and history (1982) theorised a "civilisation of the bee" which she thought contributed to the development of the languages of Eurasia. Her finally work, Bees, honey and beeswax in early historical times, was completed not long before her death but unpublished and the manuscript of it is now lost.

Galton was active in her local Labour Party branch, At the age of nearly 90, she who had never owned a home or had a bank account because she considered interest immoral, inherited a property and a sum of money and had to learn to manage both. Records relating to the surveillance of Galton by the British security services are held at the British National Archives, amounting to over 280 pages and covering the period from 1925 to 1952.

Selected publications

Articles "Sir Bernard Pares and Slavonic Studies in London University, 1919–1939", Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 46, No. 107, 1968, pp. 481–492. "Norman Brooke Jopson 1890–1969", Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 47, No. 109, 1969, pp. 303–307. (With Robert Auty) "The Anglo-Russian literary society", Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 48, No. 110, 1970, pp. 272–282. "Beeswax as an import in medieval England", Bee World, Vol. 52, No. 2, 1971, pp. 68–74.

Books Survey of a thousand years of beekeeping in Russia. Bee Research Association, Chalfont St. Peter, 1971. The bee-hive: An enquiry into its origin and history. D. Galton, Sheringham, 1982.

Other A report on Slavic studies in the universities of the United States made to the Rockefeller Foundation, July 1945. London, 1945. A guide to translations of Pushkin's verse into English. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London, 1955. Some notes for the history of the School of Slavonic Studies by Dorothy Galton. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London, 1981. 21 pp.

Translations Faguet, Émile. (1928) Politicians & moralists of the nineteenth century. London: Ernest Benn. (Library of European Political Thought) (Translated from the French language, Politiques et moralistes du XIXe siècle)