Victor Grayson won the Colne Valley by-election on this date, as an independent socialist candidate. Today he is remembered only for the fact that he later disappeared without trace, possibly having been murdered, but in his time he was nationally known as one of the greatest socialist orators.
Albert Victor Grayson (born 1881, last seen alive in 1920) started life in Liverpool, his father a carpenter and his mother a servant - although rumours have always persisted that the Graysons weren't his natural parents, who were actually aristocrats. He grew up in a highly religious atmosphere, and it was as a Sunday school teacher that his talent for public speaking first became apparent.
Originally apprenticed as an engineer, in 1904 he entered a theological college to train as a Unitarian minister. But over the next couple of years socialism replaced Christianity as his great passion, and in 1906 he left the course. Almost incredibly, he entered parliament the following year aged just 25.
He was a bold choice for the Colne Valley by-election, having little experience in political work. His high profile was due almost entirely to his oratory, which was undiminished by his stammer. Contemporary commentators described Grayson's audiences as going "haywire" and "mad" in response to his fiery speeches, which reflected his background in revivalist religion.
His narrow win in the election was sensational, a huge, astonishing moment in the history of labour in parliament. The Daily Express was horrified at a "revolutionary victory" for the "menace of socialism."
The shine wore off pretty quickly. Victor was not especially interested in the dull day-to-day job of being an MP. While he toured the country preaching revolution to packed houses, he didn't often find time to speak, or even vote, in parliament. When he did turn up he usually managed to get himself into trouble, accusing mainstream Labour MPs of being class traitors, while the House as a whole was made up of "murderers." He was excluded from the chamber for insisting on discussing the unemployment crisis during debates on other matters.
He had a taste for high living, a lively love life involving both sexes, and his overindulgence in booze was causing increasing problems. Grayson lost his seat in the 1910 general election, and never succeeded in returning to parliament. He continued to write and speak in the revolutionary cause, but mental illness and bankruptcy wore him down.
The socialist movement throughout Europe split over whether or not to support World War One; Grayson, surprisingly if not eccentrically, was firmly on the pro-war side - so much so, indeed, that he enlisted as a private in the army until injured by shrapnel and discharged.
The mysteries which continue to surround his life began to appear after the war. Widowed and in poor health, with no evident occupation, he nonetheless began once again to live in style, having been close to poverty in 1914. Where he got the means to do so has never been explained. Around this time, Grayson learned that the secret police were spying on him, suspecting him of working for either the IRA or the Russians. Their chosen spy was the bizarre figure of Maundy Gregory, known to history chiefly as the broker who illegally sold knighthoods on Lloyd George's behalf to raise money for party funds.
In a speech at Liverpool, Grayson publicly accused Lloyd George and promised he would soon name the "monocled dandy" who was running the racket. Many believe that forewarning Maundy Gregory in this way cost Victor his life; certainly, he was badly beaten up in September 1920, presumably as a warning to keep his mouth shut.
Later that month, he was out drinking one night when he received a phone message. He told his friends he had to meet someone at a hotel in Leicester Square, but that he'd be back soon. From that moment to this, no confirmed sighting of Victor Grayson has ever been reported. Alleged sightings, on the other hand, continued for decades.
Was he killed to stop him exposing the honours scandal? Or bribed with a new life under a new identity, to the same end? Perhaps his vanishing was voluntary, driven by a mental breakdown or a need to escape from scandals and entanglements of his own. Whatever the answer, his body has never been found. His most recent biographer notes that more than 20 years after the disappearance, "everything from Grayson's school records to personal letters" was gathered up by the police and, like the man himself, has never been seen since.
Victor Grayson's reputation as a lost leader of the British revolution lived on for many years, but now, increasingly, he is viewed rather as the last of the great socialist evangelists, impatient of detail and scornful of strategy, but with a marvellous ability to convey to his listeners a vivid picture of a better world that could be theirs if they were brave enough to seize it.
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Sources:
Labour Heritage Bulletin Summer 2021
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online
The bumper book of British lefties by Paul Routledge (Politico's, 2003)