82 Facts About Percy Glading

Percy Eded Glading was an English communist and a co-founder of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Percy Glading was a trade union activist, an author, and a spy for the Soviet Union against Britain, an activity for which he was convicted and imprisoned.

Percy Glading spent World War I at the Arsenal, and after the war, he chose to involve himself in working-class politics.

Percy Glading joined the forerunner of the CPGB, which he later founded with his friend Harry Pollitt and others.

Percy Glading was a national organiser for the CPGB and acted as its ambassador abroad, particularly to India.

Percy Glading was active in other groups, such as the National Minority Movement, and when he married, his wife, Elizabeth, joined him in his political activity.

Percy Glading was prominent in the Amalgamated Engineering Union, but his political activity resulted in dismissal from the Royal Arsenal, a security-sensitive post, as the government regularly dismissed those suspected of subversive activities from its employment.

Percy Glading had set up a safe house in Holland Park, West London, where he photographed various sensitive plans and blueprints.

Percy Glading trusted her and involved her in his espionage activities and lodged her in the Holland Park safe house.

Percy Glading was eventually arrested in January 1938 in the act of exchanging sensitive material from the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich.

Predominantly due to the testimony of "Miss X", Percy Glading was found guilty and sentenced to six years of hard labour.

Percy Glading was born in Wanstead, Essex on 29 November 1893.

Percy Glading later described his youth as being "the usual joys experienced by hundreds of poor proletarian families".

Percy Glading's father worked on the railways, and Glading grew up in Henniker Road, Stratford, near the marshalling yards.

Percy Glading left school aged 12 to work as a milkman and two years later he joined the railways as a trainee engineer.

Percy Glading spent World War I employed as a grinder at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich.

Percy Glading worked as an engineer in Belfast for Harland and Wolff in 1921 and was periodically unemployed.

Percy Glading "wore large round glasses that made him look like an overgrown schoolboy" but was "quick-witted and likeable".

When it was founded, there had been a proposal that a triumvirate composed of Willie Gallacher, David Proudfoot, and Percy Glading act as CPGB leadership; in the event, a single general secretary was appointed.

Percy Glading was elected to the CPGB's Central Committee in January 1927.

Percy Glading consistently pushed for a more independent communist line.

Percy Glading printed and distributed the CPGB's paper, Soldier's Voice, and was assistant head of the CPGB's Organisation Bureau.

Kevin Quinlan says this led to suspicions that Percy Glading was a "conduit for the Comintern in the early part of his career".

Nigel West says Percy Glading was unimpressed by the efforts of the Indian Communist Party to organise the workers.

Indian Political Intelligence noted that Percy Glading had particularly focussed his attention on "shipyards, munitions works, dockyards and arsenals where strike committees or 'Red Cells' existed".

Percy Glading left England on 11 June 1934 and met Glading in Paris to receive the money and instructions.

On her return, Percy Glading obtained work for Gray as Pollitt's secretary.

Percy Glading returned to Britain by way of Amsterdam, where, in July 1925, he presented the results of his studies to a communist conference that was taking place.

Percy Glading reported that "no Indian Communist groups existed at all", and that those he had met "were useless".

Percy Glading claimed that Glading had not encountered any Indian communists because they were unsure whether to make themselves known to him.

Conversely, Percy Glading believed he had found a communications problem between Indian communists and those aiding the movement from the outside.

Percy Glading soon joined one of the most pro-Soviet English trade unions of the day, the National Minority Movement, and became a national organiser for the group.

Percy Glading's politically motivated trip to India was uncovered when Guy Liddell cross-referenced the names of known communists with positions of sensitive employment.

Special Branch wanted him sacked as soon as possible; Percy Glading was thus in the latter group.

Percy Glading demanded of his Inspector what right the man had to impose "political fitness" on Arsenal employees.

Percy Glading appealed to his trade union for support, and the AEU brought the matter to the attention of the Trades Union Congress.

However, Baldwin did not intervene, the Labour Party did not raise it in parliament, and Percy Glading did not get his job back.

Percy Glading's case became a cause celebre and made national headlines.

In 1929, Percy Glading was promoted to the CPGB's London politburo and immediately left for Russia under the name James Brownlie.

Percy Glading's obituary, written later by Rajani Dutt, made no mention of the Lenin School, reporting that he spent "a year in the Soviet Union where he witnessed the great agrarian changeover from individual petty-bourgeoise holdings to collective farming".

Percy Glading returned to Britain in 1930, where he began working for the CPGB's colonial department.

Percy Glading served as a cut-out, communicating information between agents.

Percy Glading paid regular visits to the CPGB head office at 16 King Street, in London's Covent Garden.

In June 1931, Percy Glading was suspected of personally receiving the CPGB's intelligence reports from its various espionage groups and being the individual responsible for sending them to the USSR.

MI5 believed that it was in the mid-1930s that Percy Glading turned his attention from "domestic subversion to international espionage".

Either way, the first indication that Percy Glading was shifting his focus came in 1936 when he resigned from the CPGB.

Unlike most Soviet agents, Percy Glading did not have a cover job; nor did he organise a cover story.

In 1936, Percy Glading was asked to vouchsafe for Theodore Maly and Arnold Deutsch, both "top class" Comintern recruiters.

That man was Percy Glading, who travelled to Paris and vouched for the KGB men; Cairncross was recruited.

Percy Glading maintained a network of contacts from when he worked at the Arsenal, such as George Whomack, Charles Munday, and Albert Williams, all of whom later provided him with secret material and blueprints.

In January 1937, after Maly's recall, Percy Glading was summoned to meet Maly's successor as controller of the Royal Arsenal ring.

Around this time Percy Glading told Gray that he was "doing hardly any work for the party now, it is mostly for other people".

Percy Glading saw Gray as a valuable member of his team: in May 1937, he suggested she give up her job, take a professional photography course, and work for him in the flat full-time.

Gray was expected to reside at the flat, and Percy Glading promised her that he would only arrive by appointment.

On 11 October 1937, Percy Glading instructed Gray to replace the gateleg table with a refectory table as the former had turned out not to be strong enough to bear the weight of the equipment.

Percy Glading was clever enough to see that a young woman called Olga Gray, who had been recruited to secret Comintern work from a CPGB front organisation, was the perfect person to help.

Percy Glading, Gray said later, found Deutsch an unpleasant individual; Percy Glading told her that he had to tolerate Deutsch "for business reasons".

Deutsch had run the Soviet spy network in England since February 1934, and Percy Glading began introducing other people to him for recruitment.

John Curry's Official History of MI5 describes how Percy Glading would receive various important blueprints which he would photograph at Holland Road, and return the same night.

Percy Glading did not live far from Holland Road himself, having purchased a "salubrious" new development in South Harrow.

Gray later said Percy Glading was becoming anxious; work seemed to have dried up after the naval gun affair.

Also, she said, Percy Glading was keen to "continue to practice with the photographic apparatus to perfect their technique as he did not like being dependent on the vagaries of foreigners".

Percy Glading was probably attempting to keep the cell operating under his own aegis.

Yet, aspects of Gray's report suggest that Percy Glading was himself insufficiently trained to do such specialised work.

Percy Glading took Gray out to lunch at the Windsor Castle bar to discuss a "significant" operation he had planned for 82 Holland Road that same night.

Gray telephoned MI5 and duly reported what Percy Glading had told her.

That evening, 21 January 1938, Percy Glading was tailed to the station yard.

Inspector Thomas Thompson observed Percy Glading receive an envelope which was later discovered to contain blueprints.

Percy Glading's diary listed not only her name, but her family home in Hampstead.

Percy Glading was charged on various counts of obtaining secrets for, and betraying secrets to, a foreign power.

Percy Glading's solicitors, instructed by the CPGB, were Denis Pritt, leading, and assisted by Dudley Collard.

On 14 March 1938, Percy Glading received a sentence of six years' imprisonment.

Tudor-Hart, too, even though clearly involved in Percy Glading's cell, faced no effective action from the secret service.

MI5's own report into the Percy Glading affair was itself removed, copied and transmitted to Moscow in 1941 by the Soviet spy Anthony Blunt.

Percy Glading had been "deeply shocked" to learn that Gray was really an MI5 mole.

Percy Glading spent his imprisonment in Maidstone Gaol.

When interviewed Percy Glading was rather stuffy at first but gradually, under a great deal of flattery, his own conceit got the better of him.

The conversation developed on professional lines and in the end, Percy Glading even softened towards "Miss X", when he realised that he had placed her in a very difficult position.

MI5 disagreed with the trial judge's suggestion that Percy Glading was motivated by money.

Percy Glading had become estranged from his wife at some point before his trial.

Nigel West wrongly concluded that Percy Glading was "stripped of his CPGB membership" and moved to China where he later died.

Percy Glading's obituary, written by Rajani Dutt, omits all mention of his spying activities, merely stating that on his return from Russia, Percy Glading "was engaged until his trial in trade union activities".