Ann Elwell

Elwell was born in Bayswater in 1922. She was the only child of Dr. Robert and Eileen Smartt Glass. She learnt French and German from a governess whilst attending Miss Faunce's School which was local before going to Misses Lestrange's finishing school in Florence. In Florence she added bookbinding to her skills and Italian to her languages[1] and at some time Spanish.[2]

She was one of the last girls to be Debutantes in 1939.[2]

Elwell joined MI5 at Wormwood Scrubs in May 1940 after being recruited at a party. That October she and MI5 moved to Oxford where she worked at Blenheim Palace translating Italian and enjoying the social life. In 1941 she was assigned to become the secretary to the Italian film director Filippo del Giudice who had been released to work on the film In Which We Serve. She was translating for him as he took on the role of Art Director for Noël Coward and she also dod some scriptwriting. She was in that role until September 1942 when she returned to MI5 in London.[1]

At the end of the war, Elwell was sent to Rome where she spent a year as head of section reading the papers of the Italians. She took over the job from Anthony Blunt.[2] She served in the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office from 1959. This name hid the group's intention, which was to defeat communism.[2]

In 1950, Elwell married Charles Elwell who also worked for MI5. He was very concerned about subversives working in Britain.[3] They had two sons and two daughters.[4] On 12 January 1996, Elwell died in Westminster, London, England.[2] In 2008, Elwell's husband died.[4]