Eliza Manningham-Buller

Manningham-Buller's father, Lord Dilhorne (1905–1980) was a Conservative MP from 1943 to 1962.

He was Britain's second highest legal officer, the Solicitor General.

He later held the office of Lord Chancellor for two years.

He was created an hereditary peer with the title Viscount Dilhorne.

Her mother, Lady Dilhorne, trained carrier pigeons that were used to fly coded messages in World War II.

The pigeons were dropped in wicker baskets with little parachutes over France and Germany and they were used to fly back to her mother's pigeon loft carrying intelligence.

One of the pigeons won the Dickin Medal, and one brought back intelligence of the V-2 rocket project in Peenemünde, Germany.

Elizabeth Lydia Manningham-Buller, Baroness Manningham-Buller, (born 14 July 1948) is a retired British intelligence officer.

She worked as a teacher for three years before joining MI5, the British internal Security Service.

Lady Manningham-Buller worked as a teacher for three years at Queen's Gate School, Kensington, London from 1971 to 1974, having read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, before joining the Security Service.

She was recruited to the Security Service at a drinks party when someone suggested that she see someone at the Ministry of Defence.

During the early 1980s she was reportedly one of only five people aware that Oleg Gordievsky, the deputy head of the KGB at the Soviet embassy in London, was actually a double agent.

Specializing in counter-terrorism rather than MI5's then-classical counter-espionage, she was active at the time of the Lockerbie bombing by Libya in 1988.

She worked for K-branch against the IRA.

On 15 July 1991, she married David John Mallock and has five stepchildren by her husband's prior marriage.

Manningham-Buller has made speeches to invited audiences containing members of the press, as well as making court statements.

She led the newly created Irish counter-terrorism section from 1992 and then became director in charge of surveillance and technical operations.

She was a senior liaison officer working out of Washington, D.C. to the US intelligence community over the period of the first Gulf War, before leading the newly created Irish counter-terrorism section from 1992 when MI5 were given the lead responsibility for such work (from the Metropolitan Police).

Having been promoted to the management board of the Security Service the next year, Manningham-Buller became the director in charge of surveillance and technical operations.

She was appointed Deputy Director General in 1997, and succeeded Sir Stephen Lander as Director General in 2002, the second woman to take on the role after Dame Stella Rimington.

On 17 June 2003, at a conference at the Royal United Services Institute she gave her complete backing for the War on Terror and said that renegade scientists had given terror groups information needed to create chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons.

She also warned that the threat from international terrorism would be "with us for a good long time", which was why new legislation had been introduced.

Lady Dilhorne died in Oxfordshire on 25 March 2004, aged 93.

Manningham-Buller was educated at Northampton High School and Benenden School.

She became Director General of MI5 in October 2002 and, in that capacity, led the Security Service's response to the 7 July 2005 London bombings.

In the 2005 Birthday Honours, Manningham-Buller was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath (DCB).

Following her retirement in April 2007, she became a crossbench life peer in 2008.

She became chair of the Conduct Committee, which is a select committee of the House of Lords, on 19 January 2022.

She resigned from MI5 on 21 April 2007, and was succeeded by her deputy, Jonathan Evans.

She was raised to the peerage as Baroness Manningham-Buller, of Northampton in the County of Northamptonshire on 2 June 2008.

She reportedly joined the public speaking circuit.

She was appointed to the Court and Council of Imperial College London in 2009, becoming deputy chairman later that year, and named chairman in July 2011.

On St George's Day (23 April), 2014, Lady Manningham-Buller was appointed a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter (LG) by Queen Elizabeth II.

She became chair of the Conduct Committee on 19 January 2022.

She took part in the Royal Procession at the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla, carrying St Edward's Staff.

Lady Manningham-Buller was the second daughter in a family of four, born to Reginald Manningham-Buller, 1st Viscount Dilhorne, and his wife, the former Lady Mary Lindsay.

She became a governor of biomedical research charity the Wellcome Trust in 2008 and the first female chair of the Trust on 1 October 2015.

She left the Wellcome Trust in 2021, being replaced as chair by Julia Gillard on 12 April 2021.

Since 2015, she has been the co-president of Chatham House.

As of 2020, she is listed as #86 in Forbes list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women.