Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in London's West End

by Geoffrey Howse

  Dr Charles Leach (Liberal) 4,741

  A Boyd Carpenter (Conservative) 3,750

  Victor Grayson (Socialist) 3,149

  After two and a half years with a controversial MP, creating one incident after another, the electorate made their opinions very clear and the Liberals won handsomely. After losing his seat, Grayson continued to work as political editor on the Clarion, which had some years previously moved its main office from Manchester to London. In December 1908, he stood as a Socialist in the bi-election in Kennington. However, his candidature was not decided until ten days before polling, and his campaign scarcely had time to gather momentum. He did not fare well. The Liberals hung on to their seat, but only just, with a majority of fifty-five over the Tories. The result was:

  S Collins (Liberal) 3,565

  F A Lucas (Conservative) 3,510

  Victor Grayson (Socialist) 408

  Since moving to London Grayson had struck up a friendship with the actor-manager Arthur Rose, a committed Socialist. Rose introduced the former MP to actresses. It was said that Victor Grayson’s good looks and engaging personality made him very attractive to the opposite sex. Reg Groves recorded an interview with Rose:

  Between Victor and me there existed the kind of affection that can grow up between two men … a love deeper, perhaps, than the love between man and woman. Victor’s marriage did him credit, mind. You see we had both said we would never marry. Victor felt, as I did, that we ought to be free to devote all our time to the cause … I knew a great deal about Victor’s many relationships with women. You can’t blame Victor. He attracted women; he was, well, like a matinee idol. He had the loveliest women in the movement – and outside it, too – throwing themselves at him. He was only human. Which one of us can be sure we’d behave differently in similar circumstances?

  It is clear from his letters and some of his associations that Victor had homosexual leanings. It is known that he carried on a relationship with his Merseyside friend, Harry Dawson. It appears he enjoyed a bisexual lifestyle and during the latter part of his known existence, following the death of his wife, largely preferred the company of men. He did like to be seen in female company from time to time and following his wife’s death he often escorted Hilda Porter, manageress of his London apartment block, to the theatre. His good friend Robert Blatchford, whose daughter, Win, was attracted to Grayson, was not at all keen on her becoming romantically attached to him, as he was aware of Grayson’s proclivities, and wrote in a letter of Victor:

  I have never seen him show nor heard him express any regard for any woman. His general attitude towards the whole sex is one of suspicion. I have never known a young man so cold towards women. I don’t think he ever loved anybody. There is always something odd about him. I don’t think he will ever marry and I don’t think he or his wife would be at all happy if he did.

  However, much to the surprise of many who knew him, during the first week of November 1912, Victor married a twenty-five-year-old actress, who worked under the name of Ruth Norreys (Ruth Nightingale was her actual name and she was the daughter of John Nightingale, of Bolton, in Lancashire, General Manager of the County Bank, Manchester), at Chelsea Registry Office. They were to live in Stockwell Park Road. Married life with Grayson could not have been easy. To his wife’s credit she stayed loyal to him through periods of extreme depravation, she nursed him in illness, shared his political platforms and even became the family breadwinner. He suffered a bout of illness in November 1912 and the following February had a more serious nervous breakdown. Following the intervention of his friends, including Arthur Rose, a letter was published in the Clarion, stating that he was to take a rest, ideally involving a long sea voyage. They launched a national appeal to raise funds to enable him to take this necessary recuperation. Within three months, £106 16s 10d had been subscribed from supporters all over Britain. Financial considerations had meant that Victor and Ruth had moved from Stockwell Park Road to Theobald Street. A young journalist, Fenner Brockway, visited them there. He commented in an interview some seventy years later:

  I have rarely seen anyone in such utter poverty as they were. They were living in one room, slept on the floor. It’s the only time I’ve seen a sugar-box used as a table.

  The appeal enabled Victor and Ruth to travel, firstly to Italy and after five weeks there, they took a long sea voyage to New York. In his absence bankruptcy proceedings had been instigated and a petition had been filed against him on 26 August 1913, with a receiving order made against him on 9 January 1914. On his return to England, Victor gave an interview which appeared in the Huddersfield Examiner on 14 January 1914, in which he made no reference to his financial struggles but made various comparisons between life in America and in England. The purpose of the interview was to promote a political come-back. The first meeting of his creditors took place on 26 January. They decided to give him some time to see if he could raise capital. He owed £496, against assets of just £1. At the next meeting exactly a month later, he had managed to raise sufficient capital and the majority of his creditors accepted his terms. The court approved his offer to pay 7s 6d in the pound, in addition to paying costs. Grayson narrowly escaped bankruptcy, which would have prevented him entering the House of Commons again. A daughter, Elaine, was born on 13 April 1914 and following the birth the family lived at 15 Manor Gardens, Larkhall Rise, Clapham, for the next year. By the beginning of 1914, Victor had resigned himself to the fact that he had been rejected by the party he had so long supported, his pro-war stance alienated him from the rank and file of the party and this meant that he would soon split with the Clarion group. He wasn’t getting as many invitations to speak and with the coming of the war and with little hope of support in the forthcoming election, he finally withdrew his candidature from Colne Valley on 21 April 1915.

  The war had prompted Grayson to rethink many of his previous opinions. In the London Evening Standard on 20 January 1915, he wrote:

  The other day I came across a list of Lords who were serving at the front … Looking at the figures dispassionately, I think that our titled persons have given a good account of themselves. Our old point of view was that nobody with anything material to lose would enter the game of warfare. That old point of view must be abandoned … One hundred and seventy-eight peers are fighting at the front. The soil of France is already covered with their blue blood. They are fighting and dying for what they call Liberty …

  Could Grayson’s change in attitude, both during and immediately following the Great War have had anything to do with a discovery made on his part? Victor Grayson was said to have possessed a natural aristocratic bearing, he had an air of elegance, liked fine clothes, good whisky, wine and foods, and it was said of him that money simply ‘dribbled through his fingers’. There is certainly some evidence which might suggest that he was the illegitimate son of an aristocrat and it has been suggested that in the intervening six weeks between his birth and the removal of the family from Talieson Street to Elstow Street in the Kirkdale district of Liverpool, might have been to distract attention from a new arrival in the household, an arrival which could not be easily explained at the old address. Further weight was added to this theory when Georgina Nightingale, Grayson’s mother-in-law, was dying; Grayson’s daughter, Elaine, and the family maidservant, Jane, were in attendance. Towards the end of what had been a constant vigil of several days, the old lady took her granddaughter’s hand and kept repeating the name ‘the Marlboroughs’. Following her grandmother’s funeral, Elaine mentioned her grandmother’s utterings, and Jane, who had been in the Nightingales’ service for many years, in fact for all her working life, said, ‘Elaine, didn’t you realize your grandmother was telling you who your father really was?’ Some have likened Grayson’s appearance to Winston Churchill, whose father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was the son of the Duke of Marlborough, another indication, it has been said, that Grayson’s parentage was not as the official version would have it.

  In the Spring of 1915, Ruth
obtained an engagement with the Allan Wilkie Shakespearean Company for a tour of the Antipodes and Victor decided to accompany her. In Australia there was considerable demand for Victor to speak at public meetings. The great orator was in his element, and the fees he earned were a boost to the family’s finances. After touring Australia, the theatrical company set sail for New Zealand and Victor went with them. They docked in Auckland on 5 April 1916. His reputation as a former Socialist MP preceded him and he was booked for a series of lectures in three centres, for an agreed fee of £50. He gave his final lecture on 13 November before he enlisted (as a result of being goaded at several meetings for not having the courage of his convictions, by participating in the conflict himself) in the Expeditionary Forces on 28 November, as 45001 Private Victor Grayson. While Ruth continued to play the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Victor knuckled down to army life. Ruth and her daughter, Elaine, arrived back in England on 23 June 1917. Victor was posted to C Company 25th Reinforcements and disembarked at Davenport on 20 July 1917, after a long sea voyage. On 5 September he left for France. On 19 October 1917 the Press Association reported that:

  Private Victor Grayson, ex-M.P. for Colne Valley, was wounded during last Friday’s offensive and is now in hospital in France.

  Victor had received a shrapnel wound in the hip and was suffering from a nervous disorder. While he received treatment, Ruth and Elaine were in Bolton, staying with the Nightingales, enjoying the home comforts that their upper-middle-class home allowed. On 15 December, Victor appeared before the medical board at Brockenhurst, and was subsequently discharged from the army as physically unfit. The board recommended that he be awarded a thirty per cent disability pension for six months, which he never claimed. Just before Christmas 1917, Victor was granted leave and given orders to report to the discharge depot at Torquay on 3 January. He didn’t receive his discharge until 7 March. Meanwhile, a tragedy had intervened. On 6 February 1918 Ruth Grayson gave birth prematurely to a daughter, Elsie, who lived for only fifteen minutes. Four days later, on 10 February, Ruth herself died from the aftereffects of childbirth, in a nursing home at 42, Belgrave Road, London, which could only have served to aggravate Victor’s nervous disorder. It is not known when Ruth became a Catholic convert. Victor certainly did not follow her. She was buried in St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green. The gravestone was expensively fashioned from granite and was paid for by her father. The inscription reads:

  TO THE SWEET MEMORY OF

  RUTH GRAYSON

  (RUTH NORREYS)

  DEARLY LOVED AND ONLY CHILD OF

  JOHN W. & GEORGINA NIGHTINGALE

  BORN MARCH 11TH 1887

  DIED FEBRUARY 10TH 1918

  “Eternal rest give unto her O Lord

  and let perpetual light shine upon her.”

  “REQUIESCAT IN PACE”

  It is puzzling why there was no mention of her husband on the inscription Ruth left £48 2s 0d and letters of administration were granted to her father on 11 May. Perhaps Grayson’s mental state at the time was too fragile to enable him to cope with his late wife’s affairs. His mother said:

  The grave of Ruth Grayson in St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green, seen here August 2005. The author

  The shock of his wife’s death was a very great blow to him. So, too, was the death of his brother, Jack, who was killed in France while serving with the Grenadier Guards. He was deeply in love with Ruth and she with him.

  Grayson’s star was soon on the rise again. He earned some income from contributions to various journalistic publications and once again assumed the mantle of the great orator, making speeches at political meetings. In The Strange Case of Victor Grayson, Reg Groves writes of one particular speech:

  At a public meeting in Liverpool that year [1919] he demanded ‘a searching, independent investigation of the whole question of selling titles’ and went on to say:

  ‘Our sailors and soldiers, who have fought so gallantly to throw off the tyranny of the German junkers, are promised by the Prime Minister that they will have a land fit for heroes to live in.

  What do they get? A miserable pittance on which to start life anew, the permanent threat of unemployment and never a word of credit. What do they see? The war profiteers with so much money that they pay tens of thousands for a barony. I declare that this sale of honours is a national scandal. It can be traced right down from Number Ten Downing Street, to a monocled dandy with offices in Whitehall, who organizes the greatest piece of chicanery this country has known since the days of the Rotten Boroughs. I know this man and one day I will name him.’

  These were very dangerous assertions which some feel may well have been at the crux of Grayson’s disappearance. He was pointing his finger directly at Maundy Gregory. Gregory might well have felt threatened by Grayson. He had acquired a palatial office at 38 Parliament Street, Westminster, from which he operated his brokerage services. Between 1916 and 1923, Lloyd George nominated ninety-one new peers – twice the average. Many nominees were highly questionable candidates to be the recipients of such high honours and it was noted in some quarters that several war profiteers were included. Broadly speaking the tariff for honours ranged from £10,000 for a knighthood, £30,000 for a baronetcy and between £50,000 and £100,000 for a peerage. Gregory received his substantial ‘commission’ and Lloyd George’s party coffers were swelled by considerable amounts into the bargain. Gregory was eventually brought to account in part in 1933, when he served two months in prison plus a fine of £50 and costs for certain improprieties under the new Honours Act but had the matter come to light when his operation was at its height, the whole affair would have been a very serious matter indeed, and extremely embarrassing for many in the highest echelons of society.

  So we now come to September 1920, when Victor Grayson mysteriously disappeared. The last time Grayson saw his mother was at her Liverpool home and following his final departure from Northbrook Street, her final residence, the evidence about his subsequent movements is conflicting and confusing. Some say he was due to address a meeting in Hull, while others deny the existence of any such meeting. From reports of the events that followed, it seems fairly certain that he caught a train to London from Liverpool. Weeks went by, then months. His friends and relatives were not surprised at hearing no news from him, because they were accustomed to Victor’s periodic disappearances. The general public simply assumed he had withdrawn from public life. Although his mother was worried about her son’s disappearance, she was not unduly alarmed, but as months turned into years, she had almost given up hope of ever seeing Victor alive again. On 20 March 1927 the World’s Pictorial News included an article about Grayson’s disappearance seven years previously. The article included statements made by his mother, in which she said:

  If Victor is alive – which I strongly doubt – he must be wandering about suffering from loss of memory.

  It transpired that early in September 1920, Grayson had told a friend, Mr E K Donovan, that he had reason to believe that he had enemies and that ‘someone wants to do me an injury’.

  Georgian House, Bury Street, SW1, seen from Ryder Street in August 2005, where Victor Grayson rented a flat on the fourth floor. The author

  Donovan recalled that Grayson told him that he had been attacked and beaten up somewhere near the Strand. According to his family, Grayson told them that the injuries he had sustained had been as a result of a fall. He had a broken arm and a head wound which required stitches. Although the records for that period from the Charing Cross Hospital are missing, the last important piece of information the Metropolitan Police had of Grayson was of an attack on him somewhere near the Strand.

  According to most reliable reports concerning the last confirmed sighting of Grayson, several stated that he went to London. Most, but not all, of them say that he stayed in the Georgian Hotel. However, in Kelly’s Directory for 1920, there is no such place listed as the Georgian Hotel. The directory does list the Georgian Restaurant at 43 Chandos Place, which feature
s in the last known days of Victor Grayson. The building still exists but the Georgian Restaurant has been closed for decades. However, most importantly, David Clark in Victor Grayson Labour’s Lost Leader, mentions that from late in 1918, Grayson rented an apartment near St James’s Palace, in a prestigious block, called, surprisingly enough, Georgian House, situated at 10 Bury Street, SW1, for the very large sum of five guineas a week. His apartment, suite forty-two, was on the fourth floor. The manageress of the apartment block, Hilda Porter, came to know Grayson very well. She said he spent a great deal of his time sitting at his desk, writing. He had a regular set of gentlemen callers, principally, Robert Blatchford, the Socialist pamphleteer and journalist, Joseph Havelock Wilson, leader of the Seamen’s Union, Horatio Bottomley, Liberal MP for South Hackney (found guilty of twenty-three counts of fraud, in 1923 and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment) and Maundy Gregory (failed actor and impresario, private detective, MI5 informer, would-be blackmailer, publisher of the Whitehall Gazette and honours tout).