Photo source: BBC
British Diplomat, author, the spy who saved 10,000 Jewish people; there are just a few things that first pop up when you google Frank Foley. But who exactly was Frank Foley?
Francis Edward Foley was born on the 24th November 1884 in Highbridge, attending local schools before he won a scholarship to go to Lancashire College. After this he relocated to France to train to be a priest; however, he transferred to study Classics at university (Université de France in Poitiers) and while he was there he decided to pursue his academic career rather than continue with priesthood. Travelling Europe extensively, he became fluent in both French and German.
Foley was then commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the Hertfordshire regiment in 1917. He later was promoted as a Lieutenant in 1918 where he was responsible for a small network of secret agents across Europe and in 1921 resigned from the army after gaining the rank of Captain.
He was later offered the post of passport control officer in Berlin; this was actually a cover for his role as head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), which he served in during the 1920s and 30s. Together with a few colleagues he formed a system designed to rescue Jewish people that had already been taken in the first Nazi concentration camps.
His part was utilizing his status as a passport control officer, where he would be bending rules around stamping and issuing visas/passports to Jewish people, effectively allowing them to escape the dangers of Nazi Germany. He was risking his own life as he had no diplomatic immunity and would have been prosecuted if caught.
Post World-War Two, he returned to Germany under the cover of Assistant Inspector General of the Public Safety Branch, where he was effectively hunting down war criminals. In 1949 he retired here in Stourbridge and died in 1958.
His bravery will never be forgotten.