12. John Cairncross was a British intelligence officer during World War II, who passed secrets to the Soviet Union. He was alleged to be the fifth member of the Cambridge Five. His father was the manager of an ironmongers and his mother a primary school teacher. John Cairncoss was one of a family of eight, many of whom had distinguished careers. All three of his brothers became professors. One was the economist Sir Alexander Kirkland Cairncross. His niece was the journalist Frances Cairncross. Cairncross grew up in Lesmahagow, a small town on the edge of moorland, near Lanark in the Central Belt of Scotland, and was educated at the Hamilton Academy; the University of Glasgow; the Sorbonne and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied French and German. After graduating, he took the British Civil Service exam and came in first place. In an article appearing in the Glasgow Herald on 29 September 1936 it was noted that John Cairncross had scored first in the Home List and first in the competition for the Foreign Office.