As a passport control officer for the British Embassy in Berlin, Foley "bent the rules" and helped thousands of Jewish families escape from Nazi Germany after Kristallnacht and before the outbreak of the Second World War.

After attending local schools in Somerset, Foley won a scholarship to Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, where he was educated by the Jesuits.

[10] In July 1918 he became part of a small unit that was responsible for recruiting and running networks of secret agents in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

[12] After the running down of the commission, he was offered the post of passport control officer in Berlin which was a cover for his main duties as head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) station.

Pollack had contacts in the Gestapo; Wilfrid had money and direct links with sponsors abroad; and Foley was the man in charge of issuing visas.

At the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, he was described as a "Scarlet Pimpernel" for the way he risked his own life to save Jews threatened with death by the Nazis.

Despite having no diplomatic immunity and being liable to arrest at any time, Foley would bend the rules when stamping passports and issuing visas, to allow Jews to escape "legally" to Britain or Mandatory Palestine, which was controlled by the British.

[7] Foley and Margaret Reid, his assistant, abandoned Oslo on 9 April 1940 during the German advance, and travelled to Lillehammer and Åndalsnes.

Foley helped Norway's commander-in-chief, General Otto Ruge, contact Britain to request assistance against the invader.

Lord Janner, chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, was instrumental in persuading Yad Vashem to look at Smith's evidence.

The cover of Smith's book features the photograph from Foley's first diplomatic passport with the date it was issued clearly shown as 11 August 1939.

In 2007, a film about Foley's life was in the planning stages, but the producers were then taking legal action against MI6 to release still-classified documents related to his work.

It is right that we should honour him at the British Embassy in Berlin, not far from where he once worked.On 31 May 2009, a garden was dedicated in his memory at London's Sternberg Centre, where a plaque was unveiled by Cherie Booth.