Harry Houghton

Harry Frederick Houghton (7 June 1905 – 23 May 1985) was a British Naval SNCO and a spy for the Polish People's Republic and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He was a member of the Portland spy ring.

Early life Houghton was born in Lincoln, England. He left school at 14 to become an errand boy and later joined the Royal Navy. By the end of the Second World War he was a chief petty officer.

After the war, he joined the civil service and in 1951 was attached to the staff of the naval attaché of the British embassy in Warsaw, Poland. Houghton dabbled in the black market, starting with coffee and moving on to medical drugs (in his memoirs, Houghton admits to the former but denies the latter). That made him money and acquaintances but also led him to heavy drinking and the attention of the Polish Secret Police.

Houghton's wife complained of domestic abuse, and there were concerns that he was mixing with the wrong people. In 1952, he was ordered home. Houghton and his wife separated in 1956 and later divorced.

Spying career Houghton was appointed to the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment, Portland, where the Royal Navy would test equipment for undersea warfare. Around 1955 he became involved with Ethel Gee, known as "Bunty", a filing clerk who also worked at the base.

Houghton had his access to secret papers restricted around 1956 after he took secret papers out of the strongroom without the consent of his superiors.

Later life On 22 March 1961, Houghton and Gee were both sentenced to fifteen years in prison. They were released early on 12 May 1970, and they married in 1971. Around this period, Houghton wrote Operation Portland: The Autobiography of a Spy, which was published in 1972 by Hart-Davis. Houghton died in obscurity in Poole, Dorset in 1985, a year after Ethel. He left an estate valued for probate at £114,071 (equivalent to £ in ).

In popular culture A representation of Houghton and the Portland spy case was filmed in 1964, under the title Ring of Spies starring Bernard Lee as Houghton. The film used many of the actual locations of the case.