Dame Stella Rimington, the first female director general of MI5, has died aged 90, her family announced.
Nicknamed the “housewife superspy” when she came into the role, she is widely seen as the inspiration for Dame Judi Dench’s character ‘M’ in the James Bond films.
She was born on May 13 1935, in South Norwood and died on Sunday night.
In a statement, her family said: “She died surrounded by her beloved family and dogs and determinedly held on to the life she loved until her last breath.”
Rimington joined MI5 full-time in 1969, after being recruited as a part-time clerk typist by the agency’s office at the British High Commission in New Delhi, where she had moved with her husband on a diplomatic posting four years earlier.
She went on to lead each of MI5’s operational branches before being made deputy director general in 1991 and director general the following year.
She held the top job from 1992 to 1996, a period marked by threats from the IRA and Russia, as well as the early rise of Islamist terrorism.
Rimington was the first MI5 chief to be publicly named, and after a newspaper published a photo of her home, she and her family had to be moved to a secret location for their safety.
After leaving the service in 1996, she took on a number of non-executive leadership roles, including for Marks & Spencer, where she used her surveillance skills to eavesdrop on customers to pick up what they were saying about the company’s products.
She also drew on her experiences at MI5 to forge a successful second career as a thriller writer.
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