Gresham School and Soviet Agents

[John Simkin]

Gresham School is a small private school in Norfolk.

http://www.greshams.com/

Something they do not boast about on their website is that the school has produced so many communists, several who served the Soviet Union as spies.

Tom Wintringham went to Gresham School before the First World War. In 1920 he was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Great Britain. On 4th August 1925, Wintringham and 11 other activists, Jack Murphy, Wal Hannington, Ernie Cant, Harry Pollitt, John R. Campbell, Hubert Inkpin, Arthur McManus, William Rust, Robin Page Arnot, William Gallacher and Tom Bell were arrested for being members of the CPGB and charged with violation of the Mutiny Act of 1797.

Wintringham fell out with the CPGB during the Spanish Civil War where he was the commander of the British Battalion of the International Brigade. He was eventually expelled from the CPGB because he was considered to be a spy working for Leon Trotsky.

James Klugmann, the spy master and official historian of the CPGB, and one of his recruits, Donald Maclean, also attended Gresham School. Other CPGB members who were pupils at Gresham include W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Roger Simon.