Alex Gordon (police agent)

Alex Gordon was a police agent recruited by Herbert Booth, of P.M.S.2. (related to MI5) in 1916 to infiltrate the labour and anti-war movement which was proving more effective after the introduction of conscription in the United Kingdom.^[1]^{[better source needed]}

Gordon's first assignment was the infiltration of the Industrial Workers of the World.^[1]^{[better source needed]} In 1916, his notorious assignment was the 1917 Wheeldon case. In the House of Commons, William Anderson MP continued asking questions about 'Gordon''s work, finishing with: "whether an assurance will be given that 'Alex Gordon' will not in future be employed in any capacity by the government".^[2]

Months after a "most repellent incident" 'Gordon' being "withheld from the witness-box in the Wheeldon trial after being used as an instrument for getting a conviction", The Nation (edited by Henry William Massingham) demanded: "who set this man to work? what is his identity?"^[3]

The name Alex Gordon was one of the aliases for William Rickard. In 1915, using another alias, 'Francis Vivian' his poem "When Beauty withers" was published in The Story-Teller, a monthly magazine. Relevantly, this magazine had published a short story "The Invisible Enemy" where the poisoning of the victim was to apply poison to a nail inserted into the victim's boot.^[4] For the Wheeldon trial, "Gordon"'s police statement claimed that Alice Wheeldon suggestion for administering poison to David Lloyd George was to use the method of inserting a poisoned nail-in-the-boot.^[5]

References

^ ^a ^b Simkin, John. "Alex Gordon". Spartacus Educational. Spartacus Educational Publishers Ltd. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
^ Hansard, House of Commons debate, 14 June 1917, col 94. cc1107.
^ The Nation, 2 June 1917, page 217. (A.Wayfarer).
^ Meade, L.T.; Robert, Eustace (1907). "The Invisible Enemy". The Story-Teller: 97–105.
^ The National Archive, DPP 1-50, pp 8-9 (DPP Director Public Prosecutions), London.

References

Further reading