For the first time in its 116-year history, MI6 has appointed a female chief. Not since its foundation in 1909 has the service been led from the very top by a woman. The appointment of 47-year-old Blaise Metreweli places MI6 in capable hands. She has a career spanning back to 1999, in which she has served in the field, with experience in Europe and the Middle East, risen to the director level of departments within the Security Service, MI5, and more recently as Q – the much-mythologised head of technology and gadgets within MI6. Most recently, as head of Q branch, she has overseen the protection and fight against digital and cyber threats, especially China’s complex biometric surveillance and Russian disruption. She will continue the tradition that began with the first chief, Captain Mansfield Cumming, of signing her name ‘C’ in green ink. Not C for chief, but originally C for Cumming.

We should not be surprised that Blaise has succeeded as the first woman to shatter the glass ceiling, because women have always been at the heart of the highest-level of intelligence operations in the 20th and 21st centuries. The surprising element is just how long it took MI6 to appoint a woman as C.

The enormous historic contribution of women to the secret world of intelligence has been eclipsed by men in the history books, but also by official secrecy. Even when the files have been declassified, there has been a tendency to glamourise the women as ‘femme fatale’ and seductress, with a reluctance to discover their true involvement. That is changing as historians begin to focus on the hidden dimension of women in intelligence, in particular, and more widely within conflicts.

What emerges is a complex picture across all aspects of British intelligence that, like Blaise’s own hard-working career, is simply inspirational for a new generation. Despite the prejudices that existed against them, women were historically in a wealth of roles across the intelligence spectrum in the First World War, in the 1920s and 1930s, during the Second World War, and beyond. They worked for civilian organisations (MI5 and MI6) and in uniform. A closer look at these roles shows that they were a critical part of intelligence successes. In operational intelligence they were engaged behind enemy lines in intelligence gathering, deception and sabotage. In strategic and support intelligence, women provided analysis of aerial photography, radio communication, code-breaking and interrogation. Their true contribution has been obscured by labels such as secretaries, clerks and drivers; but they have been the ‘invisible’ presence as code-breakers, interrogators, agent handlers, spies, double agents, couriers and analysts.

When Blaise joined the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in 1999, women had already made their mark within it, but this legacy has been obscured by secrecy. Occasionally, we can glimpse what women have achieved in the service. Some of the most significant work during the Second World War and in the Cold War was conducted by MI6’s women abroad, especially under cover in passport-control offices or embassies in neutral countries, such as Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey and Morocco. These capitals became important espionage hubs for spies of all countries who moved in and out of the region, and, therefore, these cities became excellent bases for MI6 operatives.

From neutral countries, women of MI6 ran agents, became handlers of defectors and ‘turned’ enemy personnel to work for the Allies. Previously it had been believed that women did not become heads of MI6 stations during the Second World War. However, it has emerged that Teddy Dunlop, for example, was one of MI6’s heads of station in Lisbon and described as ‘a legend in SIS’. Very few personal details can be traced about her, and even less known about her career with MI6. However, by 1949 she was stationed in Tangier as the MI6 head of station. The Moroccan port of Tangier on the Strait of Gibraltar was strategically significant as a gateway between Europe and Africa. Here she monitored skirmishes among the Arabs and it was said that she had never required large funds for agents, and the way she ran her field was her own affair.

Daphne Park, dubbed ‘the Queen of spies’, is an example of MI6 women who had a long and exceptional career in MI6 during the Cold War and with high level promotion within the service. By 1975, she had risen to become Controller Western Hemisphere, the highest MI6 posting ever occupied by a woman at that time. Of her ground-breaking achievements, Park was quite dismissive, particularly after being once described as ‘the greatest woman intelligence officer in the world’. It was not that she minded being named as a spy, but it was the gender tag that annoyed her. She would ask, ‘Why woman intelligence officer?’

Her career in MI6 spanned 40 years. That was not unusual for women. During my own research for my book, Women in Intelligence, I came across so many women who had had a 20- or 30-year career in MI6, much of it still unknown, but enough could be gleaned to realise that they became experts in particular areas of intelligence for the service. A full evaluation of the impact of women within MI6 still cannot be undertaken, but today it can be acknowledged that they have always been there and at the heart of operations. These women set the trail for those who followed. It has been a slow, hard-fought journey. Reflecting with a measure of realism on her unusual career, Park once said, ‘There are frightening moments and there are moments when you should have been frightened but weren’t. I do not have courage, but I do have a mixture of curiosity and optimism.’ Maybe that’s what it takes to be a damn good intelligence officer.

For MI6, an organisation that prefers to remain hidden and which never discloses the identity of its intelligence officers, agents and contacts, it seems somewhat bizarre that it should announce the name of its chief at all. Who would have believed over 30 years ago that MI6 would one day have its own website, its own official history (penned by Professor Keith Jeffery) and even a presence on social media. It is, perhaps, a drive for some public visibility. The fictional world of James Bond had already imagined a female chief, played with brilliance by Dame Judi Dench, but had not cast Q as a woman.

Blaise Metreweli steps into the shoes of ‘C’ this autumn, about to make her own mark and bring her wealth of experience to bear on our security at an unstable and fragile time for world peace with the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, and the very real diverse threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Of course, her appointment now leaves a vacancy for Q, but that identity will remain as mysterious as the depth of Blaise’s own career; always protected by the shadows of secrecy… oh, and the Official Secrets Acts. Good luck in your new post C!