Edith Tudor-Hart was an Austrian / British photographer and spy for the Soviet Union who spent the last years of her life in Brighton. Edith was brought up in a family of Jewish socialists in Vienna, trained in photography at Gropius’s Bauhaus, and demonstrated her political ideals through her art.
Whilst living in Britain Edith took many photographs and worked for periodicals including ‘Picture Post’ and provided the illustrations for books such as ‘Working Class Wives’ (Spring-Rice, 1939). Through her connections with Arnold Deutsch, Tudor-Hart was instrumental in the recruiting of the Cambridge Spy ring which damaged British intelligence from World War II until the mid-1960s.
She recommended Friedmann and Philby for recruitment by the KGB and acted as an intermediary for Blunt and Stewart. She was referred to as ‘the grandmother of us all’ during a 1964 confession by Anthony Blunt, but MI5 were unable to provide evidence of her espionage. Edith spent the last years of her life in Brighton and ran an antique shop at 19 Bond Street.
