Humphrey Richard "Hugh" Slater (1906-1958?) was a British author and painter.

Brought up in South Africa, he attended the Slade School of Art in the mid-1920s, and exhibited an abstract painting at Lucy Wertheim

Lucy Wertheim

Lucy Carrington Wertheim was a British Gallery owner who founded the Twenties Group of "English artists in their twenties" in 1930 and was Christopher Wood's main patron before his death....

's gallery, a leading London gallery.
The painter William Coldstream

William Coldstream

Sir William Menzies Coldstream was a British realist painter and a long standing art teacher.-Biography:...

 considered him "a very gifted and rare artist".

Getting involved in anti-Nazi politics in Berlin in the early 1930s, he joined the Communist Party and in 1936 he went to fight in the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

 as Chief of Operations for the International Brigades

International Brigades

The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....

.

Back in England, in 1940 he helped Tom Wintringham

Tom Wintringham

Thomas Henry Wintringham was a British soldier, military historian, journalist, poet, Marxist, politician and author. He was an important figure in the formation of the Home Guard during World War II and was one of the founders of the Common Wealth Party.-Early life:Tom Wintringham was born 1898...

 set up the Osterley Park

Osterley Park

Osterley Park is a mansion set in a large park of the same name. It is in the London Borough of Hounslow, part of the western suburbs of London. When the house was built it was surrounded by rural countryside. It was one of a group of large houses close to London which served as country retreats...

 training centre which taught guerilla warfare and street fighting for the Home Guard, before being drafted into the regular army as a private. The public outcry
led to questions being asked in Parliament and an article in the US magazine TIME

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

.

He was editor of the short-lived magazine Polemic

Polemic (Magazine)

Polemic was a British "Magazine of Philosophy, Psychology, and Aesthetics" published between 1945 and 1947, which aimed to be a general or non-specialist intellectual periodical....

(1945-47).

His novel The Conspirator was filmed starring Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...

 and Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor (actor)

Robert Taylor was an American film and television actor.-Early life:Born Spangler Arlington Brugh in Filley, Nebraska, he was the son of Ruth Adaline and Spangler Andrew Brugh, who was a farmer turned doctor...

.

Publications

• 1941: Home Guard for Victory! Gollancz
• 1946: The Heretics
• 1948: The Conspirator
• 1955: Who rules Russia? Batchworth Press (London)
• 1958: The Channel Tunnel A. Wingate (London)
• 2009: Los herejes, Spanish translation of The Herectics; Galaxia Gutenberg / Círculo de Lectores (Barcelona). Translated by Montserrat Gurguí and Hernán Sabaté.
• 2009: El conspirador, Spanish translation of The Conspirator; Galaxia Gutenberg / Círculo de Lectores (Barcelona). Translated by M. Gurguí and H. Sabaté.