Maundy Gregory
Encyclopedia
Arthur Maundy Gregory was a British
theatre producer and political fixer who is best remembered for selling honours for Prime Minister David Lloyd George
. He may also have been involved with the Zinoviev Letter
, the disappearance of Victor Grayson
, and the suspicious death of his platonic companion, Edith Rosse. Gregory claimed to have been a spy for British intelligence.
, where his father was a clergyman. He attended Banister Court school in Southampton. A classmate was Harold Davidson
, the infamous Rector of Stiffkey. He attended Oxford University, but left before graduation. Gregory became a teacher, and later worked as an actor and theatre producer.
Much of the information about Gregory comes from his own papers and curriculum vitae, the truth of which is questionable. According to these sources, Vernon Kell, head of MI5
, recruited Gregory in 1909, possibly because of Gregory's connections from London's nightlife. At MI5, Gregory mainly compiled dossiers on suspected foreign spies living in London. Later, Sidney Reilly
allegedly recruited Gregory for the recently formed MI6. Gregory referred to his alleged time at MI5 and MI6 when he asserted that he had raised funds for the fight against Bolshevism. Official records verify that Gregory served as a private in the Irish Guards
, but do not verify his time at MI5 or MI6. Gregory claimed that at about the same time he claimed he was working for MI5 and MI6, he became acquainted with Basil Thomson
. Thomson was the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard's CID. The relationship between Gregory and Thomson lasted for several years.
to arrange payments to the party in exchange for peerage
s. He was actually one of many to do this. David Lloyd George
hired him as a broker to gather funding for the United Constitutional Party Lloyd George was planning to form.
At the time, prices for honours ranged from £10,000 (£310,000 today) for a knighthood to £40,000 (£1.24 million) for a baronet
cy. Later estimates state that Gregory transferred £1-2 million (now £31-62 million) to the Liberal and Conservative parties. He earned around £3 million a year, which he used to buy the Whitechapel Gazette newspaper and considerable real estate, including the Ambassador Club in Soho and the Deepdene Hotel in Surrey. Reportedly, Gregory gathered gossip about the sex lives of contemporary celebrities who stayed at the two properties. The hotel gained the reputation of being "the biggest brothel in southeast England", and Gregory It was also rumored that people at the Ambassador Club sold stolen jewellery. Allegedly, Gregory used this information for blackmail
. The Whitechapel Gazette included anti-Bolshevik and antisemitic articles by Basil Thomson writing as "Gellius".
Gregory made many friends who were prominent members of British society, including the Duke of York, later King George VI
, and the Earl of Birkenhead
. He clashed, however, with the radical left-wing politician Victor Grayson
, who had reportedly discovered that Gregory was selling honours, but who refused to denounce him without further proof. Grayson also suspected Gregory of having forged the notorious diaries of Roger Casement
. Many writers suspect that Gregory was involved in Grayson's disappearance in 1920, but there is no evidence to support this theory.
There are also claims that Gregory was involved in the Zinoviev Letter
affair that influenced the defeat of the Labour Party in the 1924 General Election.
In 1927, the new Unionist government blocked Gregory's honours-selling scheme. He began selling non-British honours, such as noble titles from Serbia
and Ukraine
, and papal honours and dispensations, such as the knighthood of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre
. Among his victims was the Catholic father of actress Mia Farrow
, to whom he had promised a marriage annulment. Gregory himself was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Holy Sepulchre.
According to published MI5 files, when Russian diplomat Ivan Korostovets tried to recruit Gregory to work against the Bolsheviks, Gregory used the Anglo-Ukrainian Fellowship as a front to continue his peerage sales and kept all the money for himself.
Gregory also continued to sell British peerages to those who were unaware he could no longer provide them. Those who paid him had no legal recourse; they could neither report him to the authorities nor sue in civil court without themselves being prosecuted under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925
. In 1930, Gregory was sued for £30,000 by the estate of a baronet who had died before receiving a peerage purchased from him. He was forced to return the money.
In 1932, she turned down his request for a loan, but was persuaded to change her will only a few days before her death. He inherited £18,000. Some suspect Rosse did not die of natural causes, but rather was poisoned by Gregory. After Gregory's fall in the "Honours" Scandal trial, Scotland Yard exhumed Rosse's body to look for postmortem evidence of poison. However, Gregory had seen to it that Rosse's grave was located in very wet ground and was unusually shallow with an unsealed coffin lid It was later alleged that Gregory delayed Rosse's burial until he found a location that frequently flooded because he believed that this would prevent later recovery of evidence. Pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury
suspected as much, but was unable to find any useful evidence or trace of poison. The novelist Evelyn Waugh
apparently heard of the incident and toyed with the idea of using it in one of his novels. Rosse is buried in All Saints' graveyard by the side of the Thames at Bisham, Berkshire.
In 1933, Gregory was convicted under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925
of selling honours. He was fined £50 and jailed for two months. As of 2007, he remains the only person to have been convicted under this act. The names of those who bought their peerages are still unknown. His case file was moved to the National Archives in 2002.
After the German occupation of France in 1940, he was captured and sent to a labour camp. Sources reporting Gregory's death conflict. He reportedly died 28 September 1941, either at an internment camp or at the Val de Grace Hospital in Paris.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
theatre producer and political fixer who is best remembered for selling honours for Prime Minister David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
. He may also have been involved with the Zinoviev Letter
Zinoviev Letter
The "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain...
, the disappearance of Victor Grayson
Victor Grayson
Albert Victor Grayson was an English socialist politician of the early 20th century. A Member of Parliament from 1907 to 1910, his sudden and still-unexplained disappearance in 1920 is widely believed to have been the result of his intention to reveal evidence of corruption at the highest levels...
, and the suspicious death of his platonic companion, Edith Rosse. Gregory claimed to have been a spy for British intelligence.
Early life
Gregory was born in SouthamptonSouthampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, where his father was a clergyman. He attended Banister Court school in Southampton. A classmate was Harold Davidson
Harold Davidson
Harold Francis Davidson , sometimes known as the "Prostitutes' Padre", was a Church of England priest, often referred to as the "Rector of Stiffkey". In 1932 he was defrocked on charges of immorality...
, the infamous Rector of Stiffkey. He attended Oxford University, but left before graduation. Gregory became a teacher, and later worked as an actor and theatre producer.
Much of the information about Gregory comes from his own papers and curriculum vitae, the truth of which is questionable. According to these sources, Vernon Kell, head of MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
, recruited Gregory in 1909, possibly because of Gregory's connections from London's nightlife. At MI5, Gregory mainly compiled dossiers on suspected foreign spies living in London. Later, Sidney Reilly
Sidney Reilly
Lieutenant Sidney George Reilly, MC , famously known as the Ace of Spies, was a Jewish Russian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard, the British Secret Service Bureau and later the Secret Intelligence Service . He is alleged to have spied for at least four nations...
allegedly recruited Gregory for the recently formed MI6. Gregory referred to his alleged time at MI5 and MI6 when he asserted that he had raised funds for the fight against Bolshevism. Official records verify that Gregory served as a private in the Irish Guards
Irish Guards
The Irish Guards , part of the Guards Division, is a Foot Guards regiment of the British Army.Along with the Royal Irish Regiment, it is one of the two Irish regiments remaining in the British Army. The Irish Guards recruit in Northern Ireland and the Irish neighbourhoods of major British cities...
, but do not verify his time at MI5 or MI6. Gregory claimed that at about the same time he claimed he was working for MI5 and MI6, he became acquainted with Basil Thomson
Basil Thomson
Sir Basil Home Thomson, KCB was a British intelligence officer, police officer, prison governor, colonial administrator, and writer.-Early life:...
. Thomson was the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard's CID. The relationship between Gregory and Thomson lasted for several years.
Selling honours
Around 1918, Gregory approached the Liberal PartyLiberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
to arrange payments to the party in exchange for peerage
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
s. He was actually one of many to do this. David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
hired him as a broker to gather funding for the United Constitutional Party Lloyd George was planning to form.
At the time, prices for honours ranged from £10,000 (£310,000 today) for a knighthood to £40,000 (£1.24 million) for a baronet
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
cy. Later estimates state that Gregory transferred £1-2 million (now £31-62 million) to the Liberal and Conservative parties. He earned around £3 million a year, which he used to buy the Whitechapel Gazette newspaper and considerable real estate, including the Ambassador Club in Soho and the Deepdene Hotel in Surrey. Reportedly, Gregory gathered gossip about the sex lives of contemporary celebrities who stayed at the two properties. The hotel gained the reputation of being "the biggest brothel in southeast England", and Gregory It was also rumored that people at the Ambassador Club sold stolen jewellery. Allegedly, Gregory used this information for blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
. The Whitechapel Gazette included anti-Bolshevik and antisemitic articles by Basil Thomson writing as "Gellius".
Gregory made many friends who were prominent members of British society, including the Duke of York, later King George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
, and the Earl of Birkenhead
Earl of Birkenhead
Earl of Birkenhead was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1922 for the noted lawyer and Conservative politician F. E. Smith, 1st Viscount Birkenhead. He was Solicitor-General in 1915, Attorney-General from 1915 to 1919 and Lord High Chancellor from 1919 to 1922...
. He clashed, however, with the radical left-wing politician Victor Grayson
Victor Grayson
Albert Victor Grayson was an English socialist politician of the early 20th century. A Member of Parliament from 1907 to 1910, his sudden and still-unexplained disappearance in 1920 is widely believed to have been the result of his intention to reveal evidence of corruption at the highest levels...
, who had reportedly discovered that Gregory was selling honours, but who refused to denounce him without further proof. Grayson also suspected Gregory of having forged the notorious diaries of Roger Casement
Roger Casement
Roger David Casement —Sir Roger Casement CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his British honours—was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist....
. Many writers suspect that Gregory was involved in Grayson's disappearance in 1920, but there is no evidence to support this theory.
There are also claims that Gregory was involved in the Zinoviev Letter
Zinoviev Letter
The "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain...
affair that influenced the defeat of the Labour Party in the 1924 General Election.
In 1927, the new Unionist government blocked Gregory's honours-selling scheme. He began selling non-British honours, such as noble titles from Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
and Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, and papal honours and dispensations, such as the knighthood of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre
Order of the Holy Sepulchre
The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem is a Roman Catholic order of knighthood under the protection of the pope. It traces its roots to Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, principal leader of the First Crusade...
. Among his victims was the Catholic father of actress Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
, to whom he had promised a marriage annulment. Gregory himself was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Holy Sepulchre.
According to published MI5 files, when Russian diplomat Ivan Korostovets tried to recruit Gregory to work against the Bolsheviks, Gregory used the Anglo-Ukrainian Fellowship as a front to continue his peerage sales and kept all the money for himself.
Gregory also continued to sell British peerages to those who were unaware he could no longer provide them. Those who paid him had no legal recourse; they could neither report him to the authorities nor sue in civil court without themselves being prosecuted under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925
Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925
The Honours Act 1925 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, that makes the sale of peerages or any other honours illegal...
. In 1930, Gregory was sued for £30,000 by the estate of a baronet who had died before receiving a peerage purchased from him. He was forced to return the money.
Edith Rosse
Gregory had been friends with actress Edith Rosse for many years. He leased a house called Vanity Fair to Rosse and her husband in 1920, and moved in with them the following year. After Rosse separated from her husband in 1923, she and Gregory continued to lived under the same roof in a platonic relationship (Gregory was a homosexual). The couple later moved to Abbey Lodge in St John's Wood (it was later converted into recording studios, where the Beatles recorded much of their best work).In 1932, she turned down his request for a loan, but was persuaded to change her will only a few days before her death. He inherited £18,000. Some suspect Rosse did not die of natural causes, but rather was poisoned by Gregory. After Gregory's fall in the "Honours" Scandal trial, Scotland Yard exhumed Rosse's body to look for postmortem evidence of poison. However, Gregory had seen to it that Rosse's grave was located in very wet ground and was unusually shallow with an unsealed coffin lid It was later alleged that Gregory delayed Rosse's burial until he found a location that frequently flooded because he believed that this would prevent later recovery of evidence. Pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury
Bernard Spilsbury
Sir Bernard Henry Spilsbury was an English pathologist. His cases include Hawley Harvey Crippen, the Seddon case and Major Armstrong poisonings, the "brides in the bath" murders by George Joseph Smith, Louis Voisin, Jean-Pierre Vaquier, the Crumbles murders, Norman Thorne, Donald Merrett, the...
suspected as much, but was unable to find any useful evidence or trace of poison. The novelist Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
apparently heard of the incident and toyed with the idea of using it in one of his novels. Rosse is buried in All Saints' graveyard by the side of the Thames at Bisham, Berkshire.
Further troubles
In 1932, Gregory tried to sell Lieutenant Commander Billyard Leake a peerage for £12,000. Leake pretended to be interested, but informed the police and Gregory was arrested. Gregory could now threaten to name in court those who had bought peerages. Because he pleaded guilty (possibly persuaded to do so by the Tory Party), Gregory did not have to give evidence in court. He did, however, give interviews to the press trying to prove his innocence.In 1933, Gregory was convicted under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925
Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925
The Honours Act 1925 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, that makes the sale of peerages or any other honours illegal...
of selling honours. He was fined £50 and jailed for two months. As of 2007, he remains the only person to have been convicted under this act. The names of those who bought their peerages are still unknown. His case file was moved to the National Archives in 2002.
Later life
He declared bankruptcy in 1933. After he was released, he moved to Paris, where he lived under an assumed name made up of his third and fourth given names on a £2,000 annual pension from sources close to the Conservative Party. British historian Andrew Cook claims that Gregory took his records with him.After the German occupation of France in 1940, he was captured and sent to a labour camp. Sources reporting Gregory's death conflict. He reportedly died 28 September 1941, either at an internment camp or at the Val de Grace Hospital in Paris.
Further reading
- Douglas Brown and E.V.Tullett - The Scalpel of Scotland Yard: the Life of Sir Bernard Spilsbury (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co.Inc.,, 1952)
- Tom Cullen - Maundy Gregory: Purveyor of Honours (1974) ISBN 0-370-01373-5
- John Walker - The Queen Has Been Pleased: The British Honours System at Work (1986) ISBN 0-436-56111-5