16 Facts About Daphne Park

Daphne Margaret Sybil Desiree Park, Baroness Park of Monmouth, CMG, OBE, FRSA was a British intelligence officer, diplomat and public servant.

Daphne Park was born to John Alexander and Doreen Gwynneth Park.

Daphne Park's father had contracted tuberculosis as a young man and was sent to Africa for rest and recuperation.

Daphne Park moved from South Africa to Nyasaland, and served as an intelligence officer during World War II.

When Daphne was six months old she travelled to Africa with her mother to join him there.

Daphne Park was further educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she received a Certificate of Competent Knowledge in Russian in 1952.

On graduating in 1943, Daphne Park turned down jobs in the Treasury and the Foreign Office to make a direct contribution to the war effort.

Daphne Park then joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.

Daphne Park was promoted to the rank of sergeant and trained groups of operatives for Operation Jedburgh, whose task was to support the Resistance in Europe.

In 1945 Daphne Park went to work as a briefing and dispatching officer in North Africa.

Daphne Park then became Second Secretary of the British Embassy in Moscow between 1954 and 1956.

Daphne Park confided to Lea that the reasoning behind the assassination was MI6 fears that Lumumba would hand over the high-value Katangese uranium deposits of Shinkolobwe as well as the diamonds and other important minerals largely located in the secessionist eastern state of Katanga to the Russians.

Daphne Park rose further through the ranks of the Foreign Office to serve in the British High Commission in Lusaka from 1964 to 1967 and then Consul-General to Hanoi from 1969 to 1970.

In 1960, Daphne Park was invested as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her service as Consul to Leopoldville.

Daphne Park was an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, and a Fellow of Chatham House and of the Royal Society of Arts.

Daphne Park died after a long illness on 24 March 2010, aged 88.