1. An Independent Labour Party Member of Parliament from 1907 to 1910, Grayson is most notable for his sensational by-election victory at Colne Valley, and unexplained disappearance in 1920.
18 Facts About Victor Grayson
1. 2.
Albert Victor Grayson was born in Liverpool, the seventh son of William Grayson, a Yorkshire carpenter, and Elizabeth Craig, who was Scottish.
3.
Victor Grayson was paid an allowance by the ILP but refused to sign the Labour Party constitution.
4.
Victor Grayson rarely attended the House of Commons and began to develop a drinking problem.
5.
Victor Grayson later alienated many of his left-wing colleagues by backing Britain's entry into World War I and turning his oratorical skills to recruiting soldiers.
6.
Victor Grayson enlisted in 1916 and served briefly in the New Zealand Army and was wounded the following year on the Western Front.
7.
In 1912, Victor Grayson married Ruth Nightingale, a young actress with boyish looks, with whom he had a daughter.
8.
In 1918, Sir Basil Thomson, head of the Special Branch, asked Maundy Gregory to spy on Victor Grayson, suspecting him of working as an agent for the new communist government in Russia or for the Irish Republican Army.
9.
Victor Grayson discovered that Gregory was spying on him and, with the help of some important friends, found out that Prime Minister David Lloyd George was using Gregory to sell political honours.
10.
Victor Grayson suspected Gregory of having forged Roger Casement's diaries, which were used as evidence to convict and execute him for treason.
11.
At the beginning of September 1920, Victor Grayson was beaten up in the Strand.
12.
Biographer David Clark believes that, having alienated both the socialists and the trade unions, Victor Grayson had entered into blackmail in order to fund his lavish lifestyle.
13.
On 28 September 1920, Victor Grayson was out drinking with friends when he received a telephone message.
14.
Victor Grayson told his friends that he had to go to the Queen's Hotel in Leicester Square and would be back shortly.
15.
Journalist Donald McCormick claims that artist George Flemwell had been painting a picture of the Thames when he saw Victor Grayson passing him in an electric canoe, along with Maundy Gregory.
16.
Flemwell knew Victor Grayson, having painted his portrait before the war, but did not realise the significance at the time because Victor Grayson was not reported missing until several months later.
17.
An investigation carried out in the 1960s revealed that the house that Victor Grayson entered was owned by Gregory.
18.
Clark believes Victor Grayson was bribed in order to keep quiet about the honours scandal, and was told to forge a new identity.