The Forgotten Spy

by Nick Barratt

  Four years later, the Launceston Daily Telegraph reported another marriage for one of the Kayser girls – this time second daughter Bertha, who married an Englishman called Thomas Gibbons on 27 February 1902. However, the report noted that:

  As Mr and Mrs Kayser and family intend leaving for a trip to Germany early next month, the wedding was of the quietest description and immediate friends only were present at the wedding luncheon, given at their residence.144

  Sure enough, on 18 March the local papers – including the enchantingly named Emu Bay Times – noted the departure not just of Ferd Kayser, but also his family for a ‘well-earned holiday’ where he ‘proposed to visit England and to return to Tasmania via America in about six or eight months’ time’.145 As if to justify this time away, the paper noted that ‘during Mr Kayser’s management, the Mount Bischoff mine had returned in dividends of £1,618,500’. This was clearly a family used to enjoying the benefits of wealth, and Lucy had developed an aspiration to live to these luxurious standards throughout her life, regardless of the cost.

  As family trips went, this was pretty special. A typical voyage to Europe could take around a month, once the requisite trunks of clothes and personal possessions were loaded onto the boat and the final farewells to friends and family said at the harbour. This holiday lasted around four months and almost certainly included professional networking for Ferd, after which the family embarked upon the Ophir at London on 15 August 1902, bound for Melbourne and home. The first Australian port they reached was Fremantle on 12 September, and the Western Australian duly noted the names of some of the more prominent people on board, including Mr and Mrs Kayser and family. They had been joined by Thomas Wilhelm Wellsted, a young mining engineer and newly appointed partner to one of the oldest mining companies in the world. He had joined the party in London and was ostensibly travelling on business; in reality, he had fallen for Lucy’s charm and beauty and the couple was soon engaged. Within six months, Lucy and her mother were repeating the journey back to Europe, sailing on the Friedrich der Grosse on 24 February 1903 from Melbourne to prepare for an April wedding in London where Lucy would make her home with her new husband.

  Wellsted was a partner with Bewick, Moreing and Company, based at Broad Street House, 62 London Wall but with regional offices around the world, including Melbourne. The business was involved both with the technical development of mining operations and mineral extraction as well as purchasing and operating mines globally – in particular in North America, Australia and the far east, but also increasingly into the European markets and Russia, with a growing interest in the uses of oil. This was a period of upheaval, though; the partnership terminated the services of mining engineer Anthony Stanley Rowe through personal bankruptcy and a scandal involving forged cheques, as announced in The Times on 7 January 1903. However, the company was still able to draw upon the talents of one of the most remarkable men of his time – Herbert Clark Hoover. He had been hired in 1897 and enjoyed an adventurous career around the world – even if he did not think so himself – which resulted in his promotion to full partnership in the company on 18 December 1901, when he based himself in London although his new remit was to oversee the company’s Australian gold mining operations. Thomas Wellsted and Herbert Hoover were close working companions and often dined together, although many associates noted the rather lifeless atmosphere of a Hoover dinner party. The events would often pass in virtual silence – ‘never was he heard to mention a poem, a play, a work of art’, wrote one attendee – which was hardly surprising as Hoover’s whole focus was devoted to making money.146

  Hoover took up residence in Kensington – Red House in Campden Hill – where his two children Herbert Charles and Allen Henry were born in 1903 and 1908. Although Lucy developed a lifelong association with Kensington, drawn perhaps by Hoover’s regular updates from her homeland, the Wellsteds initially settled at 14 Lambolle Road, Belsize Park, where their first son Thomas Arthur was born on 3 April 1904. A second child, Ferdinand Edward Wellsted, appeared on 27 January 1907, the proud parents posting an announcement in The Times to let friends and family at home and overseas know the good news.147

  Later that year, Wellsted was posted to Australia to visit his company’s operations and he made the decision to take his family with him – a great opportunity for his wife to catch up with her relatives and show off her children. Unsurprisingly, given the distances involved, this was not a short trip. They arrived in Fremantle on 1 October, with Wellsted spending some time with his in-laws in Tasmania before heading west to the Gwalia mines in early November. They eventually returned home on 6 February 1908, having completed a first-class circumnavigation of the world via Hawaii, San Francisco and New York.

  However, it was at this point that the careers and fortunes of Hoover and Wellsted started to diverge. Doubts had been growing about some of Hoover’s other business interests that were too close for comfort to those of Bewick and Moreing, in particular his association with the Zinc Corporation at Broken Hill, New South Wales. He also started to extend his influence in China, becoming involved in the controversial supply of migrant labour to South African mines that eventually caused disquiet in parliament. He began to explore the possibility of Russian oil as a new venture – something that Bewick and Moreing were also interested in developing. By 1908, he was a director of 11 other companies besides his day job. Amid growing tension, a parting of the ways was on the cards and it was to no surprise that on 7 July 1908 The Times carried the announcement that the partnership had been formally dissolved. Hoover left to set out on his own as an independent mining consultant. Throughout this period of upheaval, Wellsted played little part in the boardroom politics, mainly because he faced a crisis of his own. After the family’s return from Australia Ferdinand had contracted whooping cough, a disease that had only been discovered by scientists two years previously. He battled the illness for 21 days but developed complications – acute bronchitis and, for the final five days of his life, convulsions. He died on 2 April 1908, two months past his first birthday, leaving the family devastated.

  On departing Bewick and Moreing, Hoover had given assurances that he would not encroach upon their business. However, the world was simply too small for them to peacefully co-exist. Matters erupted into a courtroom battle in 1910 when Bewick and Moreing filed a lawsuit against Hoover for infringement against the non-competition agreement he had signed, specifically related to his pursuit of oil interests in Russia. The case grew increasingly bitter, with personal testimony submitted about Hoover’s ‘disregard’ for his former colleagues and ‘treacherous involvement’ in Russia. In turn, Hoover calmly claimed that he had strictly observed the covenant not to practice as a mining engineer on the business of the old partnership in London, Liverpool or Manchester for ten years but that he was now engaged in new activities.

  Despite the legal animosity at boardroom level, personal friendships and professional connections were harder to break, especially if they were lubricated in the newly formed Mining and Metallurgical Club, located a few offices down from Bewick and Moreing at 3 London Wall in the City. The venue was essentially a gentlemen’s club for the professional mining community with dining, music, socialising and entertainment – an industry equivalent to the sort of establishment Oldham would frequent in the mid 1920s. The two old friends continued to meet there whenever possible, but by this date Wellsted and his family had moved to Langley Park House, Watford. Wellsted picked up some of the tasks that his more experienced colleague would previously have dealt with – troubleshooting the threat of industrial action in the Kalgoorlie mines in September 1911, for example. On a personal note, the Wellsteds were blessed with another child, James Raymond having been delivered into the world on 13 May 1913.

  However, when war broke out in 1914, the contrast between the fortunes of Hoover and Wellsted could not have been more pronounced. A note in The Times showed that the Wellsteds had subscribed £21 to the paper’s Red Cross Appeal, whereas H
oover earned his nickname as the Great Humanitarian by almost singlehandedly organising the relief effort and makeshift camps to ease the Belgian refugee crisis – at least, he certainly made sure he took all the credit. Perhaps less well known is the fact that during the war he continued to buy chemicals in Germany rather than in Britain as part of his business operation, because they were cheaper. Under the terms of the 1917 Trading With The Enemy Act, he could have been arrested for treason and executed.

  With Hoover gone, Wellsted found the burden of global travel falling increasingly upon his shoulders. However, he was no longer a young man and found it much harder to manage the change from hot dry climates abroad to the damp and smoky City air, with the result that his health began to suffer. By 1919, after Wellsted had been afflicted by a particularly bad case of whooping cough that left his chest weak and prone to further infection, the family took the decision to move to Melbourne in the hope that the climate change would prove congenial. They ended up not far from St Kilda, where Lucy’s father had relocated in 1908. Thomas’s brother, Edward James Wellsted had already moved out to manage the Kalgoorlie operations for Bewick and Moreing. The remedy was unsuccessful, and on 30 April Thomas Wellsted passed away at their home on Collins Street, Lister House, aged only 54. Devastated by the loss of her husband, Lucy packed her bags, said her goodbyes to her family and returned home to England, arriving in London on 31 July 1919. Her departure was the last time she was to speak to her father. A few months later she learned that he had died on 12 October at home in St Kilda, aged 86.

  According to later documents, Lucy was apparently well catered for by bequests left in both her husband’s and father’s wills. It is stated in private papers that she inherited a lump sum of £22,000 – over £1 million in today’s money – and an annuity of £600 to cater for her sons, exactly four times what Ernest Oldham was earning each year at the Foreign Office.148 However, closer scrutiny suggests that this was not exactly the case.

  Lucy had been named co-executor of her husband’s will, along with the National Provincial and Union Bank of England Ltd, so that a solicitor could deal with Wellsted’s somewhat complicated financial affairs. She renounced her claim to probate – meaning that she was no longer a executor and leaving the financial administration in the hands of William Henry Sidebotham, who had been nominated by the bank to act as the administrator. Probate was duly granted on 24 October 1919, and it is apparent that once Wellsted’s estate had been assessed, the net value was only £9,679.5.4.

  Wellsted had drawn up his will the day before he died and made careful provision for his family. Lucy was to inherit all his personal trinkets and watches, plus a cash legacy of £1,000 to be paid to her as soon as possible after his death. However, the rest of his estate was to be invested in securities and trust funds to provide an annual income for his wife, on the understanding that she would use the money to provide an education for her children. She was also made their sole guardian. Thus £600 per year was likely to have been her living allowance.149

  At the age of 37, relatively wealthy, still young and very attractive, Lucy decided to settle where her friends were congregated – Kensington. First she acquired accommodation at 6 de Vere Mansions, Queen’s Gate, before moving to Lurgan Mansions, Sloane Square in 1923. She eventually settled at 79c Cromwell Gardens – a somewhat exclusive area of Kensington with views of the Natural History and Victoria & Albert museums.150 Lucy began to re-establish herself amongst her old circle of friends. It is hard to imagine the circumstances under which the glamorous, well-connected widow would first be introduced to and then fall for a much younger civil servant who lived in a north London suburb with his parents. Lucy’s oldest son Thomas, writing in the 1970s, tried to recall the circumstances under which her mother first met Oldham.

  I think he may have been introduced by her friend, a Lieutenant Commander Billy Everett, sometime in the early 1920s. Everett, impecunious and, I fear, a sponger, claimed to be a King’s Messenger and I remember his saying a visit he made to Constantinople, I think in 1923, was as a King’s Messsenger. He died 1924 or 1925.151

  Thomas Wellsted clearly had a good memory, particularly when we dig a bit deeper into the evidence. The person he was referring to was William Bostock Everett, born in 1879 in Ashby de la Zouche in the Midlands. He seems to have been a conscientious student – a report in the Derby Mercury on 9 February 1898 proudly boasts of ‘a grammar school boy’s success’:

  Mr William Bostock Everett, son of Mr Everett, the stationmaster at Ashby, has been appointed English correspondent in Athens by a large London firm, who had 250 applications from all quarters for the position. Mr Everett was educated at the Ashby grammar school, after which he held posts in London.152

  His overseas posting may have served to fuel his lust for travel and adventure, as he became an assistant paymaster in the Royal Naval Reserves in October 1904, which suggests a prior career as a merchant seaman. During World War I, he quickly rose through the ranks to become paymaster on 2 May 1917 and then lieutenant commander by 1920, a rank backdated to 15 October 1914, when the Royal Naval Reserve decoration was conferred on him by King George V. On 31 December 1922, he was promoted to commander.153

  From 1916 to 1918 he served on board HMS Himalaya, an armed merchant cruiser and mercantile conversion that formed part of the guard for the Central and South Atlantic convoys. During this period, Everett sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, visiting Guinea, South Africa, Mozambique and Tanganyika (now Tanzania) before heading back home via Brazil. Thereafter, with his new rank he gained a position on the ‘stone frigate’ – or naval land base on shore – HMS President, on the Victoria Embankment near Tower Bridge in the heart of the City. Everett was assigned to President VI, which handled transport service accounts and from February 1919 served as the base for the Murmansk tugs, while managing the accounts of officers assigned to northern Russia. At the end of the war, he took up residence at 29 Harrington Gardens in Kensington, though he habitually provided his address as the Cocoa Tree Club, 64 St James Street, in the West End.154 This was one of the many clubs that were concentrated in the area where it was fashionable to be seen as a member, although the Cocoa Tree rather incongruously shared its premises with a gunsmith’s shop.

  Given the general use of Royal Naval Reserve officers for signals and light intelligence work, it is perhaps not surprising that many of Everett’s colleagues regularly appeared in the records of the Foreign Office running diplomatic courier missions, as we’ve already seen. These included a messenger service three times a week from Paris to London. A King’s Messenger travelling on overseas business would almost certainly have known or worked with Ernest Oldham, since he had been given the task of managing the service – including the unofficial King’s Messengers that had so irritated men such as Antrobus and Wheeler-Holohan. Sure enough, an entry appears in the day books for the travelling expenses of Commander WB Everett, presented on 3 September 1923 and filed a week later, for his trip to Constantinople on official business between 21 August and 2 September. It showed a balance of £9.12.10 due to him. He even remembered to enclose the relevant vouchers, no doubt endearing himself to Oldham and his colleagues who had to process all the dockets. However he wrote later to say that he had ‘destroyed’ his note of expenses and had to contact the Wagon-Lit offices for confirmation of the amount. Such carelessness may explain why this was the only entry for his services on a long-haul journey.155

  In any case, Everett’s travelling days were drawing to a close. Eighteen months later he was dead, having checked into the Suffolk Victoria Nursing Home at 57 Fonnereau Road, Ipswich, for treatment for ulcerative colitis – severe inflammatory bowel disease. It would appear that the treatment was unsuccessful as this was listed as the cause of his demise, along with exhaustion which probably tells its own story. Interestingly, the informant was Everett’s brother, who lived in Windsor Road, Finchley, only four miles from Oldham’s home in Edmonton. However, while it is easy to tie Everett and
Oldham together, it is much harder to see Everett’s connection with Lucy Wellsted other than a vague residential proximity, presuming Everett even stayed in Kensington beyond 1918 given the more exotic address that he habitually provided. Far more likely candidates for mutual acquaintance are provided by the witnesses at Oldham’s marriage in 1927, Octave Count de la Chapelle and his wife Rachel. But as with most strands in this section of the story, not everything was as it seemed.

  Octave Count de la Chapelle was one of the most colourful characters of the time, whose full title – Victor Octave Xavier Alfred de Morton de la Chapelle, Count de la Chapelle – reflects both French and Scottish aristocratic roots. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, he was born in 1863 in Périgord, in the Dordogne region of France, the son of the Count and Countess de la Chapelle. He spent the first eight years of life on the family estates at the Château de Montcuque, Périgord, and at Château Giomer on the edge of the marshes at St Valéry-sur-Somme. His father, Alfred, was a staunch supporter of Napoleon III and had his estates confiscated when the emperor was deposed and exiled in the wake of France’s catastrophic defeat in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war. Humiliated at Sedan and captured by the Prussians, Napoleon was eventually released and chose to live in England – Camden Place in Chiselhurst, to be precise. The de la Chapelle family moved to Italy, before eventually also coming to England.

  Elements of this are certainly true, but in reality Alfred had a thirst for adventure when younger which took him far beyond the confines of Europe. Initially, he headed for California in the early 1850s, drawn by the lure of the gold rush and became embroiled in a failed French military incursion against the Mexicans, which resulted in de la Chapelle being condemned to death and left en capilla – sharing a cell with his own coffin. However, he was pardoned by President Santa Anna (a man worthy of a book in his own right – known as the Napoleon of the West, he had one of his amputated legs buried with full military honours) and sent back to California in disgrace.