Cecil Aylmer Cameron

Who was Cecil Aylmer Cameron?

Major Cecil Aylmer Cameron, CBE, DSO was a British Army officer and spymaster and also a central figure of a notable fraud trial of 1911.

The son of Colonel Aylmer Cameron VC, he was educated at Eastman's Royal Naval Academy, Bath College, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery in 1901.

In 1911 he and his wife Ruby were convicted of fraud in Edinburgh and sentenced to three years' imprisonment for attempting to defraud Lloyd's by claiming £6,500 for the theft of Mrs Cameron's pearl necklace, which had not actually been stolen. He refused to give evidence in his defence and served the full sentence. Following his release, a petition for a pardon was signed by, among others, five dukes, twenty privy councillors, and 126 generals. During her imprisonment, his wife had confessed that she alone was the guilty party and Cameron had only been protecting her. He received a full pardon and was restored to his rank of Lieutenant.

He served as a staff officer in France during the First World War, during which time he was mentioned in dispatches four times and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Under the codename EVELYN he was responsible for running spies in German-occupied France and Belgium from stations at Folkestone in England, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and Montreuil in France.