Victor
Grayson,
the son of a carpenter, was born in Liverpool
on 5th September, 1881. As a child he suffered from a stammer and
was teased about it at school. At the age of fourteen he ran away
from home and attempted to stow away on board a ship bound for Australia.
After four days at sea he was discovered and returned to his parents.
In 1899 Grayson started work as an apprentice engineer in Bootle,
Lancashire. He joined the union and over the next couple of years
became very interested in the emerging socialist movement. Grayson
learnt about politics by reading The Clarion,
Justice and The
Labour Leader.
He also attended meetings of the Socialist Debating Society at the
Liverpool Mission Hall and later joined the Independent
Labour Party (ILP).
Grayson also became a member of the Unitarian
Church in Liverpool. The local minister
recognised Grayson's potential and helped him to get a place at Owen's
College, Manchester as a divinity student.
The long-term plan was for Grayson to become a Unitarian minister.
In Liverpool Grayson developed a reputation
as a surberb orator. Most days he could be found standing on his soap
box giving lectures on socialism. The university authorities became
concerned about Grayson neglecting his studies and asked one of the
ILP leaders, Philip Snowden, to speak
to him. Snowden was unable to persuade Grayson to continue his studies.
Grayson told Snowden that the university was a "make-believe
refuge" and he intended to work in the real world. Over the next
couple of years Grayson toured the industrial districts giving lectures
on socialism. His reputation grew and he was seen as a future leader
of the newly formed Labour Party.
In January 1907, the Independent Labour Party
in Colne Valley selected Victor
Grayson
as their parliamentary candidate. In the past, there had been an arrangement
where the labour movement supported the Liberal
Party candidate in Colne Valley in return for help in winning
other seats for ILP candidates. The executive of the Labour
Party therefore decided not to endorse Grayson as their candidate.
Colne Valley ILP refused to back down and in the by-election held
in July, 1907, Grayson stood as an
Independent
Socialist
candidate.
The leadership of the Labour movement were angry by the unwillingness
of the Independent Labour Party in Colne Valley
to follow the orders of the National Executive. Convinced that the
Liberal Party would win the seat, very
few of the national figures in the ILP helped Grayson during his campaign.
Although the Independent Labour Party was committed
to the parliamentary road to socialism, during the election, Grayson
advocated revolution. In his election address Grayson wrote "I
do not believe that we are divinely destined to be drudges. We must
break the rules of the rich and take our destinies into our own hands."
Grayson used his skills as an orator to create a wave of emotion in
Colne Valley and this is reflected by the fact that 88% of the electorate
voted. Sensationally, Grayson obtained 153 more votes than the Liberal
Party candidate and won the election.
Grayson was angry that the national leadership had been unwilling
to support his campaign in Colne Valley and refused to join the Labour
Party group in the House of Commons.
In fact, Grayson rarely attended Parliament, preferring to tour the
country making speeches in favour of revolutionary socialism. Of over
300 debates that took place in the Commons while he was the Colne
Valley MP, Grayson only voted in 32. Grayson behaviour in Parliament
was also becoming more erratic and it became clear that he had a serious
drink problem.
In November 1908 Grayson attended a debate on a proposed new Licensing
Bill. Grayson interrupted the debate by standing up and shouting "I
wish to move the adjournment of the House so that it can deal with
the unemployment question. People are starving in the streets."
When Grayson refused to sit down the Speaker ordered the Serjeant-at-Arms
to remove him from the House of Commons.
Grayson turned to the leaders of the Labour
Party and shouted: "I will gladly leave! You are traitors
to your class."
After this incident Grayson rarely visited the House
of Commons. At first the people of Colne Valley were pleased that
they had an MP that spoke up for the unemployed. However, they were
less impressed by stories his luxurious life-style and his heavy drinking.
In the 1910 General Election Grayson was
easily defeated by the Liberal Party candidate
at Colne Valley.
Without a seat in the House of Commons,
Victor Grayson attempted to make a living from lecture tours. Still
drinking heavily, his health began to deteriorate and in 1913 had
a mental breakdown. Grayson gave up alcohol and went on a sea-cruise
and for a while his health began to recover. He was now strong enough
to start a lecture tour in America. This went well until he started
drinking again. Grayson returned to Britain but he was now an alcoholic
and at public meetings in Bradford and
Glasgow he was to drunk to speak and had
to be carried off the stage.
Grayson shocked his radical friends by supporting the First
World War. He gave recruiting speeches and wrote articles urging
young men to join the armed forces. In 1915 Grayson travelled to New
Zealand where he had been offered work as an actor. However, this
was not a success and he joined the New Zealand army. He was sent
to the Western Front and on 12 October 1917 was badly wounded.
After the war Victor
Grayson
returned to England where he hoped to revive his political career.
Without the backing of any of the major political parties, Grayson
found it impossible to become a parliamentary candidate. Grayson returned
to the lecture tour and at a meeting in Liverpool
he accused David Lloyd George, the British
Prime Minister, of corruption. Grayson claimed that Lloyd George was
selling political honours for between £10,000 and £40,000.
Grayson declared: "This sale of honours is a national scandal.
It can be traced right down to 10 Downing Street, and to a monocled
dandy with offices in Whitehall. I know this man, and one day I will
name him."
The monocled dandy was Arthur Maundy Gregory,
an MI5 agent and a close friend of David Lloyd
George. For several months Gregory had been employed by Sir
Basil Thompson, Head of the Special Branch, to spy on Grayson.
The politician had found out about this and decided to do some spying
on Gregory. With the help of some important friends, Grayson discovered
that Lloyd George was using Gregory to sell honours.
At the beginning of September 1920, Victor
Grayson was beaten up in the Strand. This was probably an attempt
to frighten Grayson but he continued to make speeches about the selling
of honours and threatening to name the man behind this corrupt system.
On the 28th September Grayson was drinking with friends when he received
a telephone message. Grayson told his friends that the had to go to
Queen's Hotel in Leicester Square and would be back shortly.
Later that night, George
Flemwell was painting a picture of the Thames, when he saw Grayson
entering a house on the river bank. Flemwell knew Grayson as he had
painted his portrait before the war. Flemwell did not realize the
significance of this as the time because Grayson was not reported
missing until several months later. An investigation carried out in
the 1960s revealled that the house that Grayson entered was owned
by Arthur Maundy Gregory.
Grayson was never seen alive again. It is believed he was murdered
but his body was never found. After Grayson's death Arthur
Maundy Gregory continued to sell honours for the next twelve years.
Gregory was involved in arranging for the forged Zinoviev
Letter to be published that helped to defeat the Labour
Party in the 1924 General Election.
In 1932 Gregory attempted to sell a knighthood to Lieutenant Commander
Edward Leake. He pretended he was interested and then reported the
matter of Scotland Yard. Gregory was arrested but he turned it to
his advantage as he was now able to blackmail famous people into paying
him money in return for not naming them in court. Gregory pleased
guilty and therefore did not give evidence of his activities in court.
Arthur Maundy Gregory was sentenced to
two months' imprisonment and a fine of £50. On leaving prison
Gregory was persuaded to live in Paris where he was paid a pension
of £2,000 a year by the Conservative
Party.
(1)
W. F. Black, The Labour Leader (1906)
Victor
Grayson has a deep rich voice, just made for the open-air and he gave
his audience plain, strong, and richly-defined Socialism. Nothing
petty or mean, no appeal to unworthy motives, or even the misery of
things, but an uplifting, elevating, manly propaganda speech, addressed
to the crowd as men. In Victor Grayson, student and orator, the Manchester
men have found a prize indeed, and Socialism has gained another valuable
asset.
(2)
Fred Jowett, Clarion
(2nd October, 1908)
Men
are now described as traitors by Victor Grayson who undertook the
task of founding a Socialist Movement at a time when the chilling
frost of almost universal indifference was far harder to bear than
are the violent alternations between the excitement of hostility and
the enthusiasm of fellowship in which Victor Grayson now lives and
moves.
We must recognise that the man who can make a crowd shout is not necessarily
an organizer of men. The gift of platform oratory, skill in making
striking phrases, is a dangerous one. It is the man behind that matters.
If his skill is employed in setting, not class against class, but
men of the same class against their kith and kin, sewing seeds of
distrust and hatred where the love of a common cause should produce
the fellowship of kindred spirits, it were better if he had no such
skill.
(3)
Edward Carpenter, My Days and Dreams
(1916)
Victor
Grayson was a most humorous creature. His fund of anecdotes was inexhaustible,
and rarely could a supper party of which he was a member got to bed
before three in the morning. On the platform for detailed or constructive
argument he was no good, but for criticism of the enemy he was inimitable
- the shafts of his wit played like lightening round him, and with
his big mouth and flexible upper lip he seemed to be simply browsing
off his opponents and eating them up. His disappearance from public
life has been quite a loss.
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