On this day on 12th July

On this day in 1536 philosopher Desiderius Erasmus died. Erasmus was born in Rotterdam in 1466. He was illegitimate and his father, Roger Gerard, was a well-educated priest, and his mother, a widow named Margaretha Rogerius. His parents died of the plague in 1483 and his guardians "apparently because they had embezzled his money cajoled him into becoming a monk at the monastery of Steyr, a step which he regretted all the rest of his life."

Erasmus developed a love of learning and while at the monastery he wrote: "I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults."

At the monastery he met a young man, Servatius Rogerus, to whom he became particulary attached. He told his brother, Pieter Gerard: "He is, believe me, a youth of beautiful, disposition and very agreeable personality and a devoted student... This young man is very anxious to meet you, and if you make your way have soon, as I hope you will, I am quite sure that you will not only think he deserves your friendship but readily prefer him to me, your brother, for I well know both your warm-heartedness and his goodness."

Erasmus wrote a series of letters to Rogerus detailing the depth of his affection and attachment. At first Rogerus seems to have responded to these advances with equal ardour, but then pulled back from a sexual relationship. Erasmus was extremely hurt by this rejection: "So impossible is it, dear Servatius, that anything should suffice to wash away the cares of the spirit and cheer my heart when I am deprived of you, and you alone... But you, crueller than any tigress, can easily dissemble all this as if you had no care for your friend's well-being at all. Ah, heartless spirit! Alas, unnatural man."

It has been argued by Jonathan Goldberg, in his book, Queering the Renaissance (1993) that these letters suggest a homosexual relationship. However, Diarmaid MacCulloch, the author of Reformation: A History (2003) claims that this is a misunderstanding about the nature of male relationship in the 15th century and the letters are only "surely expressions of true friendship" and that it was not uncommon during this period for men to express passionate attachments to your close friends."

Erasmus took vows in 1488 and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood on 25th April 1492. According to his biographer, Johan H. Huizinga: "He found society, and especially religious life, full of practices, ceremonies, traditions and conceptions, from which the spirit seems to have departed. He does not reject them offhand and altogether; what revolts him is that they are so often performed without understanding and right feeling. But to his mind, highly susceptible to the foolish and ridiculous things, and with a delicate need of high decorum and inward dignity, all that sphere of ceremony and tradition displays itself as a useless, nay, a hurtful scene of human stupidity and selfishness."

In 1493, he became secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai, who was Chancellor of the Order of the Golden Fleece. This gave him the opportunity to leave the monastery and travel. In 1495 Erasmus went to the University of Paris and became an accomplished Latinist. Erasmus particularly admired Lorenzo Valla, "on account of his book on the elegancies of the Latin language". Valla was considered to be one of the leaders of Renaissance Humanism (a revival in the study of classical antiquity). Erasmus shared Valla's dislike "medieval scholasticism" and promoted the study of the humanities: grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy.

Erasmus also met and influenced by John Colet, canon of St Martin le Grand, London. Colet introduced Erasmus to the work of Plato. He later recalled that "when Colet speaks I might be listening to Plato!" For people like Erasmus and Colet the "individual's personal relationship to God was now more important than his relationship to the church as an organization".

Erasmus wrote to Christian Northoff about how much he enjoyed his studies: "A constant element of enjoyment must be mingled with our studies, so that we think of learning as a game rather than a form of drudgery, for no activity can be continued for long if it does not to some extent afford pleasure to the participant.... You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn…. Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself." In a letter to Jacob Batt he explained how much he valued books: "When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes."

In 1499 Erasmus made his first visit to England where he resumed his friendship with Colet. He introduced him to Thomas More, a member of Lincoln's Inn. According to Roger Lockyer: "With them the humanist movement in England - the study of man and his relationship to God - came of age." John Guy agrees that Erasmus did have a great influence over More, Cuthbert Tunstall, Richard Pace, Thomas Linacre, and William Grocyn. However, "Erasmus aspired to 'peace of mind' and 'moderate reform' through the application and development of critical insight and the power of humane letters. He eschewed politics; some said he was a dreamer. Colet, More, Tunstall, and Pace, by contrast, became councillors to Henry VIII: they resolved to enter politics and Erasmus disapproved, predicting the misfortunes that befell those who put their trust in princes."

During a stay in Tournehem, a castle near Saint-Omer in France, Erasmus encountered a badly behaved, yet friendly soldier who was an acquaintance of James Battus. On the request of the soldier's wife, who was upset by her husband's behaviour, Battus asked Erasmus to write a text which would convince the soldier of the necessity of mending his ways. He began Handbook of the Christian Knight (1503): "Albeit, most virtuous father, that the little book... which I made for myself only, and for a certain friend of mine being utterly unlearned, hath begun to mislike and displease me the less, forasmuch as I do see that it is allowed of you and other virtuous and learned men such as you be, of whom (as ye are indeed endued with godly learning, and also with learned godliness) I know nothing to be approved, but that which is both holy and also clerkly: yet it hath begun well nigh also to please and like me now, when I see it (after that it hath been so oftentimes printed) yet still to be desired and greatly called for, as if it were a new work made of late: if so be the printers do not lie to flatter me withal."

During his studies Erasmus began collecting Greek and Latin proverbs. The first edition, Adagia, was published in 1500. A second and expanded edition, entitled Adagiorum, was published in 1508. It confirmed Erasmus' vast reading in ancient literature. It included over 3,000 proverbs, some accompanied by richly annotated commentaries, some of which were brief essays on political and moral topics. Charles Speroni has described it as "one of the most monumental collection of proverbs ever assembled"

It included proverbs such as: More haste, less speed. The blind leading the blind. A rolling stone gathers no moss. One man's meat is another man's poison. Necessity is the mother of invention. One step at a time. To be in the same boat. To lead one by the nose. A rare bird. One to one. Out of tune. A point in time. I gave as bad as I got. To call a spade a spade. Hatched from the same egg. Many hands make light work. Where there's life, there's hope. To cut to the quick. Time reveals all things. Crocodile tears. To lift a finger. Kill two birds with one stone. The bowels of the earth. Happy in one's own skin. Hanging by a thread. To throw cold water on. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. No sooner said than done. Between a rock and a hard place. Can't teach an old dog new tricks. A necessary evil. To squeeze water out of a stone. To leave no stone unturned. God helps those who help themselves. The grass is greener over the fence. The cart before the horse. One swallow doesn't make a summer. To sleep on it. To break the ice. Ship-shape. To die of laughing. To have an iron in the fire. To look a gift horse in the mouth. Like father, like son. He blows his own trumpet. A snail's pace. The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

While in England he taught Greek at Cambridge University and began translating the works of Cicero and Seneca. He became a strong supporter of John Colet who in 1512 preached before the Canterbury Convocation. He attacked clerical abuses and advocated reform of the church from within. Colet compared negligent priests of heretics. "You are come together today, fathers and right wise men, to hold a council. In which what you will do and what matters you will handle, I do not yet know, but I wish that, at length, mindful of your name and profession, you would consider of the reformation of ecclesiastical affairs; for never was there more necessity and never did the state of the Church more need endeavours. Wherefore I have come here today, fathers, to admonish you with all your minds to deliberate, in this your Council, concerning the reformation of the Church. As I am about to exhort you, revered fathers, to endeavour to reform the condition of the Church; because nothing has so disfigured the face of the Church as the secular and worldly way of living on the part of the clergy... As to the second worldly evil, which is the lust for the flesh - has not this vice, I ask, inundated the Church as with the flood of its lust, so that nothing is more carefully sought after, in these most troubled times, by the most part of priests, than that which ministers sensual pleasure? They give themselves to feasting and banqueting; spend themselves in vain babbling, take part in sports and plays, devote themselves to hunting and hawking; are drowned in the delights of this world; patronize those who cater for their pleasure."

The sermon aroused resentment, but the humanists repeated their demand for religious renewal. "Erasmus best combined the Christian and classical elements of the Renaissance; the key to his success was his exquisite style: the medium was as important for him as the message. He embellished his evangelism with racy criticisms of priests and monks, superstition and empty ritual, scholastic theologians, and even the mores of the papacy, but was careful to insinuate and thereby avoid dangerous statements."

Erasmus most important book was The Praise of Folly. He wrote it in the home of Thomas More. "The book is spoken by Folly in her own person… She counsels, as an antidote to wisdom, “taking a wife, a creature so harmless and silly, and yet so useful and convenient, as might mollify and make pliable the stiffness and morose humour of men'. Who can be happy without flattery or without self-love? Yet such happiness is folly. The happiest men are those who are nearest the brutes and divest themselves of reason. The best happiness is that which is based on delusion, since it costs least… There are passages where the satire gives way to invective, and Folly utters the serious opinions of Erasmus; these are concerned with ecclesiastical abuses. Pardons and indulgences, by which priests 'compute the time of each souls’s residence in purgatory'; the worship of saints, even of the Virgin, 'whose blind devotees think it manners to place the mother before the Son'; the disputes of theologians as the Trinty and the Incarnation; the doctrine of transubstantiation; the scholastic sects; popes, cardinals, and bishops – all are fiercely ridiculed. Particularly fierce is the attack on the monastic orders; they are 'brainsick fools', who have very little religion in them, yet are 'highly in love with themselves, and fond admirers of their own happiness'. It might be supposed, from such passages, that Erasmus would have welcomed the Reformation, but it proved otherwise."

The first edition of The Praise of Folly (1515) included illustrations by Hans Holbein. Apparently Pope Leo X found this satire amusing. However, some of his friends warned him that as he attacked established religion he faced possible dangers to his safety. The Russian philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin has argued: "The satirist whose laughter is negative places himself above the object of his mockery, he is opposed to it. The wholeness of the world’s comic aspect is destroyed, and that which appears comic becomes a private reaction. The people’s ambivalent laughter, on the other hand, expresses the point of view of the whole world; he who is laughing also belongs to it.. Medieval Latin humour found its final and complete expression at the highest level of the Renaissance in Erasmus’s In Praise of Folly, one of the greatest creations of carnival laughter in world literature."

In his letters he began to speculate on the subject of love. In a letter to Martin Dorp he compares his own views with those of Plato. "I first mention three madnesses of Plato among which the happiest is that of the lovers which is nothing but a kind of ecstasy. But the ecstasy of the pious is nothing else but a foretaste of the future happiness through which we shall be absorbed into God, being in Him rather than in ourselves. But Plato calls this madness when a person is driven out of himself and lives in that which he loves and enjoys it."

Desiderius Erasmus questioned the official view of sexual morality: "I have no patience with those who say that sexual excitement is shameful and that venereal stimuli have their origin not in nature, but in sin. Nothing is so far from the truth. As if marriage, whose function cannot be fulfilled without these incitements, did not rise above blame. In other living creatures, where do these incitements come from? From nature or from sin? From nature, of course. It must be borne in mind that in the appetites of the body there is very little difference between man and other living creatures. Finally, we defile by our imagination what of its own nature is fair and holy. If we were willing to evaluate things not according to the opinion of the crowd, but according to nature itself, how is it less repulsive to eat, chew, digest, evacuate, and sleep after the fashion of dumb animals, than to enjoy lawful and permitted carnal relations?"

He remained highly critical of monasteries: "There are monasteries where there is no discipline, and which are worse than brothels. There are others where religion is nothing but ritual; and these are worse than the first, for the Spirit of God is not in them, and they are inflated with self-righteousness. There are those, again, where the brethren are so sick of the imposture that they keep it up only to deceive the vulgar. The houses are rare indeed where the rule is seriously observed, and even in these few, if you look to the bottom, you will find small sincerity. But there is craft, and plenty of it - craft enough to impose on mature men, not to say innocent boys; and this is called profession. Suppose a house where all is as it ought to be, you have no security that it will continue so. A good superior may be followed by a fool or a tyrant, or an infected brother may introduce a moral plague. True, in extreme cases a monk may change his house, or even may change his order, but leave is rarely given. There is always a suspicion of something wrong, and on the least complaint such a person is sent back."

In 1516, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar arrived in Wittenberg. He was selling documents called indulgences that pardoned people for the sins they had committed. Tetzel told people that the money raised by the sale of these indulgences would be used to repair St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Luther was very angry that Pope Leo X was raising money in this way. He believed that it was wrong for people to be able to buy forgiveness for sins they had committed. Martin Luther, professor in biblical studies at University of Wittenberg, wrote a letter to the Bishop of Mainz, Albert of Brandenburg, protesting the sale of indulgences.

On 31st October, 1517, Martin Luther affixed to the castle church door, which served as the "black-board" of the university, on which all notices of disputations and high academic functions were displayed, his Ninety-five Theses. The same day he sent a copy of the Theses to the professors of the University of Mainz. They immediately agreed that they were "heretical". For example, Thesis 86, asks: "Why does not the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?"

At first Erasmus gave Luther his support. Erasmus described him as "a mighty trumpet of gospel truth" while agreeing, "It is clear that many of the reforms for which Luther calls are urgently needed." The feelings were mutual and Luther spoke about Erasmus' superior learning and Luther expressed boundless admiration for all Erasmus had done in the cause of a sound and reasonable Christianity and urged him to join the Lutheran party. Erasmus declined to commit himself, arguing that to do so would endanger his position as a leader in the movement for pure scholarship which he regarded as his purpose in life.

During 1518 Martin Luther wrote a number of tracts criticising the Papal indulgences, the doctrine of Purgatory, and the corruptions of the Church. "He had launched a national movement in Germany, supported by princes and peasants alike, against the Pope, the Church of Rome, and its economic exploitation of the German people." On 15th June 1520, Pope Leo X issued Exsurge Domine, condemning the ideas of Martin Luther as heretical and ordering the faithful to burn his books. Luther responded by burning books of canon law and papal decrees. On 3rd January 1521 Luther was excommunicated. However, most German citizens supported Luther against the Pope. The German papal legate wrote: "All Germany is in revolution. Nine tenths shout Luther as their war-cry; and the other tenth cares nothing about Luther, and cries: Death to the court of Rome!"

Each side tried to enlist Erasmus in this dispute. He finally rejected the Protestant Reformation and came down on the Catholic side. Although he favoured reform he feared war between the two religious groups. In 1524 he wrote a work defending free will, which Luther rejected. Luther replied savagely, and Erasmus was driven further into reaction. According to Bertrand Russell: "He (Erasmus) had always been timid, and the times were no longer suited to timid people. For honest men, the only honourable alternatives were martyrdom or victory."

Humanists like Erasmus had criticised the Catholic Church but Luther's attack was very different. As Jasper Ridley has pointed out: "From the beginning there was a fundamental difference between Erasmus and Luther, between the humanists and the Lutherans. The humanists wished to remove the corruptions and to reform the Church in order to strengthen it; the Lutherans, almost from the beginning, wished to overthrow the Church, believing that it had become incurably wicked and was not the Church of Christ on earth."

Derek Wilson, the author of Out of the Storm: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther (2007) argues that: "Erasmus was quite serious about the need to careen the Christian ship, removing all the barnacles and weed which had accumulated over the centuries and cutting out worm-ridden timber. He pleaded for a return to simple faith and devotion not dependent on externals. Yet he had no intention of going to the stake for the cause of reform and he hoped by satirising all aspects of society, secular as well as sacred, to get his point across without causing too much offence."

Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora in 1525. In a letter to François Dubois he defended Luther against the rumours that circulated about him: "There is no doubt about Martin Luther's marriage, but the rumour about his wife's early confinement is false; she is said however to be pregnant now. If there is truth in the popular legend, that Antichrist will be born from a monk and a nun (which is the story these people keep putting about), how many thousands of Antichrists the world must have already!"

Desiderius Erasmus died in Basel on 12th July, 1536. Much of his estate he left to a friend, Boniface Amerbach, for distribution to promising young scholars and to provide dowries for young women without money. He died without a priest or confessor, and left no money to have masses said for his soul. "He was buried in the same church where reformers had destroyed religios statues and images seven years earlier."

Hugh Trevor-Roper pointed out: "Desiderius Erasmus was a scholar who, in the early days of printing, sought to give his contemporaries clear and accurate texts of certain neglected works…. His personal character was not heroic. He was a valetudinarian, comfort-loving, timid and querulous. He lived in his study and died in his bed. And yet Erasmus is a giant figure in the history of ideas. He is the intellectual hero of the sixteenth century, and his failure was Europe’s tragedy. For his failure seemed, at the time, immense and final: as immense as his previous success."

On this day in 1730 Josiah Wedgwood, the thirteenth and youngest son of the potter, Thomas Wedgwood, was born in Burslem, Stoke. His mother, Mary Stringer Wedgwood, was the daughter of the Unitarian minister at Newcastle under Lyme, and taught all her sons and daughters to read and write. At the age of seven he walked three-and-a-half-miles to attend the local school.

At the age of nine Josiah left school and joined the family business at Churchyard Works. His father had died so Josiah was apprenticed to his elder brother. After an attack of smallpox at the age of eleven, his health deteriorated and the disease which left his right knee permanently weakened and work as a potter became difficult. Josiah spent his time reading and researching about the craft of pottery.

In 1742 Josiah left the family business and joined Harrison & Alders, a minor pottery in Stoke. In 1754, aged only twenty-four, he obtained a partnership with Thomas Whieldon, eleven years his senior. Wedgwood and Whieldon are credited with several innovations, including "the division of labour, with men employed on different tasks - throwing, turning, handling, decorating, mixing slip." They paid their workers well and gave them regular presents of a shirt or a pair of shoes. As a result of this treatment they "exacted scrupulous obedience, respectful behaviour, and strict punctuality".

According to Robin Reilly, "Wedgwood's work with Whieldon was largely concerned with the improvement of ceramic bodies, glazes, colours, and shapes, and it is clear that his efforts were directed principally towards the development of lead-glazed, cream-coloured earthenware (creamware) and the creation and improvement of coloured glazes." (6) Wedgwood later explained that there were good economic reasons for these experiments, "the improvement of our manufacture of earthenware, which at that time stood in great need of it, the demand for our good decreasing daily, and the trade universally complained of as being bad and in a declining condition."

In 1759 Wedgwood left Whieldon to become an independent potter, renting the Ivy House Works at Burslem for £15 a year and hiring his cousin, Thomas Wedgwood, as journeyman. Thomas, who was four years younger than Josiah, had served his apprenticeship at a manufacturer's in Worcester where he learnt how to make a new form of porcelain. His skills were so valuable that he was willing to pay him £22 a year, well above the average for a skilled artisan.

Ivy House was the first pottery factory in England. Wedgwood employed fifteen men and boys. He taught his men the techniques developed while he worked with Whieldon. The rich green and yellow glazes were applied in the shape of cauliflowers, pineapples, artichokes and melons. He also arranged for his pots to be decorated by the new transfer printing. The men took prints from engraved copper plates, made on paper or on sheets of glue using ceramic colour, and pressed them on to the glaze. This trade grew rapidly in worth from £30 a month in 1763 to £650 a month eight years later.

On one of his trips to Liverpool in 1762 Wedgwood met Thomas Bentley, a general merchant in the town. Bentley was the same age as Wedgwood and held similar Nonconformist religious views. They were both sympathetic to the Unitarian movement. There is no set doctrinal beliefs that all Unitarians agree on. In fact, the most important aspect of Unitarianism is the right of individuals to develop their own religious opinions. Unitarians tend to believe that Jesus Christ was a human religious leader to be followed but not worshipped. Unitarians argued that Jesus is the "great exemplar which we ought to copy in order to perfect our union with God". Wedgwood's mother had taught him that "knowledge based upon reason, experience, and experiment was preferable to dogma."

Bentley had received a better education and spoke French and Italian and knew a great deal about art. He also had radical political views and was a strong opponent of the slave-trade and a great supporter of female education. The two men became close friends and Bentley became Wedgwood's agent in Liverpool. Bentley had a tremendous impact on Wedgwood's political views.

They soon developed a very close relationship. In a letter he wrote to Bentley soon afterwards he described him as "my much esteemed friend... I shall not care how Quakerish or otherwise antique it may sound, as it perfectly corresponds with the sentiments I wish to continue towards you." Wedgwood told Bentley he loved receiving his letters: "The very feel of them, even before the seal is broke, cheers my heart and does me good. They inspire me with taste, emulation and everything that is necessary for the production of fine things."

Wedgwood and Bentley were both strong supporters of the radical reformer, John Wilkes. In June 1762 Wilkes established The North Briton, a newspaper that severely attacked the George III and his prime minister, Earl of Bute. In March 1763, Wedgwood wrote to Bentley about Wilkes being forced into exile. "It gives universal disgust here and is the general topic of every political club in town".

Josiah Wedgwood married his third cousin, Sarah Wedgwood, on 25th January 1764. He wrote that "for a handful of the first months after matrimony" he wished "to hear, see, feel or understand nothing" but his wife. He told Thomas Bentley that as a result of the damage caused by his early smallpox, his physiology was so adapted to feeling pain that sensual pleasures was more "than I shall ever be able to express."

Sarah was a substantial heiress and brought with her a considerable dowry, said to have been £4,000, which came under Wedgwood's control. "Sarah was intelligent, shrewd, and well educated - better, in fact, than her husband - and they shared a broad sense of humour and a strong sense of family duty. In the first years of their marriage, she helped Josiah with his work, learning the codes and formulae in which he recorded his experiments, keeping accounts, and giving practical advice on shapes and decoration." Over the next few years Sarah had seven children: Susannah (1765), John (1766), Josiah (1769), Thomas (1771), Catherine (1774), Sarah (1776) and Mary (1778).

In 1765, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the wife of George III, ordered a tea-set from Wedgwood, complete with candlesticks and fruit baskets, "with a gold ground, and raised flowers upon it in green". He followed it up by sending a box of patterns and vases to the Queen and soon won permission to style himself "Potter to Her Majesty" while his creamware was granted the name of "Queen's Ware". A second tea-set was ordered by the King, to a simpler design which became known as "the Royal Pattern".

The royal commissions sealed his reputation. Wedgwood wrote two years later: "The demand for Queen's Ware... still increases. It is really amazing how rapidly the use of it has spread almost all over the whole globe, and how universally it is liked. How much of this general use and estimation is owing to the mode of its introduction - and how much to its real utility and beauty are questions in which we may be a good deal interested for the government of our future conduct."

It has been claimed that Josiah Wedgwood had the "supreme gift of being able to persuade the governing classes that that they had a community of tastes and interests". Joel Mokyr, the author of The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution (2009) has pointed out: "The notion of marketing was pushed furthest by the famed potter Josiah Wedgwood, whose appeals to snobbery and to the nobility-envy of the merchant and middle classes were an early example of what some might think of as consumer manipulation. Wedgwood's marketing strategies included a brazen display of goods targeted at the high and the mighty, to be imitated by the would-have-beens and even by the never-were."

During this period Josiah Wedgwood became friends with the industrialist, Matthew Boulton. Wedgwood visited his factory in Birmingham in May 1767. At the time Boulton was employing over 500 people and had a turnover of £30,000. Wedgwood was impressed as he only had a turnover of around £5,000. Wedgwood wrote to his friend, Thomas Bentley: "He is I believe the most complete manufacturer in England in England, in metal. He is very ingenious."

The following year Boulton formed a partnership with Wedgwood. It was agreed that Wedgwood would supply plain ornamental vases which Boulton would finish by applying colourful gold and purple metal works (ormolu) to vases. Boulton told Wedgwood that he was convinced that they were going to "supplant the French in the gilt business" and would extend "the sale of it to every corner of Europe."

Unfortunately, Wedgwood had to cancel the arrangement because of ill-health. For the past 25 years he had been troubled by numbness in the knee and fatigue in the muscles he used to compensate when walking. A fall from a horse made his leg even worse. He examined by his doctor, Matthew Turner, who told him that he had broken his shinbone. However, he was also concerned about the tumour in his leg that was the result of having smallpox he had as a child. He feared it was spreading and he advised him to have his leg amputated. This was carried out without anesthetic in April, 1767.

Matthew Boulton and his friend Erasmus Darwin formed what became known as the Lunar Society of Birmingham. The group took this name because they used to meet to dine and converse on the night of the full moon. Wedgwood also attended these meetings. Other members included James Watt, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Day, William Small, John Whitehurst, John Robison, Joseph Black, William Withering, John Wilkinson, Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Joseph Wright. This group of scientists, writers and industrialists discussed philosophy, engineering and chemistry.

As Maureen McNeil has pointed out: "These innovating men of science and industry were drawn together by their interest in natural philosophy, technological and industrial development, and social change appropriate to these concerns. The society acquired its name because of the practice of meeting once a month on the afternoon of the Monday nearest the time of the full moon, but informal contacts among members were also important."

At one of these meetings Wedgwood met the engineer James Brindley. He had great success from building the Bridgewater Canal for Francis Egerton, the Duke of Bridgewater. This provided Manchester manufacturers with an alternative way of transporting their goods to the port of Liverpool. As this reduced the costs of transporting goods between these two cities from 12s to 6s a ton (20 cwt), Bridgewater had little difficulty in persuading people to use his canal. It was a "powerful signal regarding the profitability and feasibility of canals".

The financial success of the Bridgewater Canal encouraged other business people to join together to build canals. Josiah Wedgwood had been transporting his pottery by pack-horses. The poor state of the roads meant a great number of breakages. In 1766 Wedgwood and some of his business friends decided to recruit James Brindley to build the Trent & Mersey Canal.

Wedgwood had already bought for £3,000 the Ridgehouse estate of some 350 acres, situated between Burslem, Hanley and Newcastle under Lyme, and built there a factory which he named Etruria. A crucial advantage of the location of the factory was its position next to the proposed Trent and Mersey Canal.

The canal began within a few miles of the River Mersey, near Runcorn and finished in a junction with the River Trent in Derbyshire. It was just over ninety miles long with more than 70 locks and five tunnels. At the time it was described as the "greatest civil engineering work built in Britain." Although the canal cost £130,000 to build, it reduced the price of transporting Wedgwood's goods from £210s to 13s 4d a ton.

John Wilkes returned to England in 1768 and in March stood as Radical candidate for Middlesex. The vote was held in public and of the 15 electors, 13 voted for "Wilkes and Liberty". After being elected Wilkes was arrested and taken to King's Bench Prison. For the next fortnight a large crowd assembled at St. George's Field, a large open space by the prison.

On 10th May, 1768 a crowd of around 15,000 arrived outside the prison. The crowd chanted 'Wilkes and Liberty', 'No Liberty, No King', and 'Damn the King! Damn the Government! Damn the Justices!'. Fearing that the crowd would attempt to rescue Wilkes, the troops opened fire killing seven people. Anger at the Massacre of St. George's Fields led to disturbances all over London.

Wedgwood was an active member of the Unitarian Church. Like most Unitarians, Wedgwood was a political reformer. He supported universal male suffrage and annual parliaments. Wedgwood made it clear that he supported Wilkes and in defiance of the king he produced pottery that contained portraits of John Wilkes and other campaigners for universal suffrage.

On 8th June Wilkes was found guilty of libel and sentenced to 22 months imprisonment and fined £1,000. Wilkes was also expelled from the House of Commons but in February, March and April, 1769, he was three times re-elected for Middlesex, but on all three occasions the decision was overturned by Parliament. In May the House of Commons voted that Colonel Henry Luttrell, the defeated candidate at Middlesex, should be accepted as the MP. John Horne Tooke and other supporters of Wilkes formed the Bill of Rights Society. At first the society concentrated on forcing Parliament to accept the will of the Middlesex electorate, however, the organisation eventually adopted a radical programme of parliamentary reform.

In November, 1768, Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley of Liverpool became partners in Etruria. Arthur Young visited the company and later wrote: "In general we owe the possession of this most flourishing manufacture to the inventive genius of Mr. Wedgwood, who not only originally introduced the present cream coloured ware, but has since been the inventor of every improvement, the other manufactures being little better than mere imitators... Wedgwood has lately entered into a partnership with a man of sense and spirit, who will have taste enough to continue in the inventive plan."

In 1769 Bentley moved to Great Newport Street in London to undertake the management of the Wedgwood showrooms and to establish a ceramic enamelling studio at Little Cheyne Row in Chelsea. In 1770 Empress Catherine the Great of Russia commissioned a huge dinner service of 952 pieces, each depicting a different British scene. "Nothing of the kind had previously been attempted in England, and Bentley's support in supervising and training as many as thirty-three previously semi-skilled painters, and finding illustrations for them to copy, must have been invaluable to Wedgwood". The service was successfully completed in 1774, and cost the Empress £2,700.

Josiah Wedgwood continued to experiment and in 1775 he developed what became known as "jasper". This was a hard ceramic body that could be coloured and polished on a lapidary's wheel. Two years later he wrote that it was only after carrying out 5,000 experiments, that he could genuinely say, "I am now absolute in this precious article." Jasper enabled him to produce white figures in relief against a coloured background.

Wedgwood now employed artists such as John Flaxman to design his vases. Wedgwood said that he "lamented that Flaxman's Anthony and Cleopatras were so fine that he could hardly bear to part with them. Flaxman and his wife became good friends of the family and often stayed at Etruria. He sculpted at least twenty-two portraits of "illustrious moderns" for Wedgwood. In 1781 he designed lavish mouldings and allegorical friezes for the drawing-room ceiling at Etruria Hall.

Wedgwood had a bell rigged to a turret across the yard from his house and every morning at quarter to six he rang it to tell his employees it was time to start work. Wedgwood believed it important to regulate working hours and to stop his workers from spending too much time in the alehouse. Although he insisted on strict factory discipline he also "subsidized an early form of sick-benefit scheme, and conditions for work at Etruria compared favourably with those to be found anywhere in Europe".

Brian Dolan, the author of Josiah Wedgwood: Entrepreneur to the Enlightenment (2004) claims that Wedgwood and Bentley believed very strongly that they needed to improve the quality of life of their workforce: "Their accomplishments in designing new materials and products, and the money they made for their products, amounted to nothing if it did not generate broader social change; the principles of mercantile freedoms should extend to social freedoms, to create, in essence, a more egalitarian society."

In December 1778, Thomas Bentley wrote to Wedgwood: "I have not any friend by whose side I have been accustomed to engage and conquer; and who had the same energy that you constantly possess, when there is occasion for it, either to promote the public good, assist your friends, or support your own rights. I fancy I can do anything with your help, and I have been so much used to it, that when you are not with me upon these occasions I seem to have lost my right arm".

Wedgwood was devastated by Bentley's death on 26th November 1780. The St James's Chronicle commented: "For his (Thomas Bentley) uncommon ingenuity, for his fine taste in the arts, his amiable character in private life, and his ardent zeal for the prosperity of his country, he was justly admired, and will long be most seriously regretted by all who had the pleasure of knowing so excellent a character". Bentley's letters were carefully bound in a great thick book and was described by Wedgwood as "Josiah's Bible".

In 1780 he joined the Society for Constitutional Information and became friendly with other reformers such as Joseph Priestley, John Cartwright, John Horne Tooke, John Thelwall, Granville Sharp, Thomas Walker, Joseph Gales and William Smith and the Duke of Richmond. It was an organisation of social reformers, many of whom were drawn from the rational dissenting community, dedicated to publishing political tracts aimed at educating fellow citizens on their lost ancient liberties. It promoted the work of Tom Paine and other campaigners for parliamentary reform.

Wedgwood told his friend and partner, Thomas Bentley, who was also a member: "I wish every success to the Society for Constitutional Information and if I was upon the spot should gladly not confine myself to wishes only. If at this distance I can in any way promote their truly patriotic designs, either by my money or my services, they are both open to you to command as you please. I rejoice to hear that the Duke of Richmond and Lord Selbourne are friends of annual parliaments." He ended the letter with a quotation from fellow member, Major John Cartwight, "that every member of the state must either have a vote or be a slave".

The following year his close friend, Joseph Priestley, had his house burnt down in Birmingham. He wrote to Priestley on 2nd September: "I persuade myself that you will rise still more splendid and more respected from what was intended to sink you. Your calmness and magnanimity on this trying occasion have put your enemies to shame. We esteem you in every point of view; and we are employed at this moment in drawing up a letter which is to be addressed to you by all the savants of the capital."

In 1787 Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson and William Dillwyn established the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Other supporters were William Allen, John Wesley, Samuel Romilly, Thomas Walker, John Cartwright, James Ramsay, Charles Middleton, Henry Thornton and William Smith. Sharp was appointed as chairman. He accepted the title but never took the chair. Clarkson commented that Sharp "always seated himself at the lowest end of the room, choosing rather to serve the glorious cause in humility... than in the character of a distinguished individual." Clarkson was appointed secretary and Hoare as treasurer. At their second meeting Samuel Hoare reported subscriptions of £136.

Josiah Wedgwood joined the organising committee. He urged his friends to join the organisation. Wedgwood wrote to James Watt asking for his support: "I take it for granted that you and I are on the same side of the question respecting the slave trade. I have joined my brethren here in a petition from the pottery for abolition of it, as I do not like a half-measure in this black business."

As Adam Hochschild, the author of Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery (2005) has pointed out: "Wedgwood asked one of his craftsmen to design a seal for stamping the wax used to close envelopes. It showed a kneeling African in chains, lifting his hands beseechingly." It included the words: "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" Hochschild goes onto argue that "reproduced everywhere from books and leaflets to snuffboxes and cufflinks, the image was an instant hit... Wedgwood's kneeling African, the equivalent of the label buttons we wear for electoral campaigns, was probably the first widespread use of a logo designed for a political cause."

Thomas Clarkson explained: "Some had them inlaid in gold on the lid of their snuff boxes. Of the ladies, several wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length the taste for wearing them became general, and this fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom."

Hundreds of these images were produced. Benjamin Franklin suggested that the image was "equal to that of the best written pamphlet".Men displayed them as shirt pins and coat buttons. Whereas women used the image in bracelets, brooches and ornamental hairpins. In this way, women could show their anti-slavery opinions at a time when they were denied the vote. Later, a group of women designed their own medal, "Am I Not a Slave And A Sister?"

Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Day and Erasmus Darwin helped form the Birmingham Anti-Slavery Committee. They were attacked by several leading merchants in the city and some of them even petitioned Parliament against abolition. Priestley declared that although they supported the commercial interests, they would oppose "any commerce which always originates in violence and often terminates in cruelty".

In November 1794 Wedgwood's health began to fail. His face swelled and he suffered acute pain in the jaw, attributed to a decayed tooth. His condition deteriorated rapidly and he became unconscious. Josiah Wedgwood died, probably from cancer of the jaw, on 3rd January 1795, at Etruria Hall. He had made substantial gifts to his children during his lifetime but the total value of his estate nevertheless approached £500,000 (over £200 million in today's money).

On this day in 1807 English engineer Thomas Hawksley, the son of John Hawksley, a manufacturer, and his wife, Mary Whittle Hawksley, was born at Arnold, near Nottingham, on 12th July 1807. He was educated at Nottingham Grammar School and in 1822 was articled to Edward Staveley, architect and surveyor. He eventually became a partner in this business.

Nottingham was a town that had changed dramatically. It had a population of about 10,000 in the middle of the 18th century and it was described as "a garden city, with well laid out houses, surrounded by orchards and gardens in the midst of parkland and open spaces". By 1831 the population had risen to about 50,000 but the people were packed into very much the same ground area as had been occupied a hundred years before. It was now "a chequer board of mean streets, alleyways and courts".

This was supported by an official report published at this time: "I believe that nowhere else shall we find so large a mass of people crowded into courts as in Nottingham... The courts are almost always approached through a low-arched tunnel of some 30 or 36 inches wide, about 8 feet high, and from 20 to 30 feet long... In these confined quarters, the refuse is allowed to accumulate... until it has acquired value as manure... It is common to find the privies open and exposed to the public gaze of the inhabitants... The houses are three stories high, side by side, back to back."

Nottingham became one of the first towns in Britain to pipe fresh water into all homes. Thomas Hawksley was appointed as chief engineer and in 1844 he was interviewed by a Parliamentary Committee about his work: "Before the supply was laid on in the houses water was sold chiefly to the labouring-classes by carriers at the rate of one farthing a bucket; and if the water had to be carried any distance up a court a halfpenny a bucket was, in some instances, charged. In general it was sold at about three gallons for a farthing. But the Company now delivers to all the town 76,000 gallons for £1; in other words, carries into every house 79 gallons for a farthing, and delivers water night and day, at every instant of time that it is wanted, at a charge 26 times less than the old delivery by hand."

In 1847 the British government proposed a Public Health Bill that was based on some of the recommendations of Edwin Chadwick. There were still a large number of MPs who were strong supporters of what was known as laissez-faire. This was a belief that government should not interfere in the free market. They argued that it was up to individuals to decide on what goods or services they wanted to buy. These included spending on such things as sewage removal and water supplies. George Hudson, the Conservative Party MP, stated in the House of Commons: "The people want to be left to manage their own affairs; they do not want Parliament... interfering in everybody's business."

Supporters of Chadwick argued that many people were not well-informed enough to make good decisions on these matters. Other MPs pointed out that many people could not afford the cost of these services and therefore needed the help of the government. The Health of Towns Association, an organisation formed by doctors, began a propaganda campaign in favour of reform and encouraged people to sign a petition in favour of the Public Health Bill. In June 1847, the association sent Parliament a petition that contained over 32,000 signatures. However, this was not enough to persuade Parliament, and in July the bill was defeated.

A few weeks later news reached Britain of an outbreak of cholera in Egypt. The disease gradually spread west, and by early 1848 it had arrived in Europe. The previous outbreak of the disease in Britain in 1831, had resulted in the deaths of over 16,000 people. Faced with the possibility of a cholera epidemic, the government decided to try again. This new bill involved the setting up of a Board of Health Act, that had the power to advise and assist towns which wanted to improve public sanitation.

In an attempt to persuade the supporters of laissez-faire to agree to a Public Health Act, the government made several changes to the bill introduced in 1847. For example, local boards of health could only be established when more than one-tenth of the ratepayers agreed to it or if the death-rate was higher than 23 per 1000. Chadwick was disappointed by the changes that had taken place, but he agreed to become one of the three members of the central Board of Health when the act was passed in the summer of 1848. However, the act was passed too late to stop the outbreak of cholera that arrived in Britain that September. In the next few months, cholera killed 80,000 people. Once again, it was mainly the people living in the industrial slums who caught the disease.

By 1853 over 160 towns and cities had set up local boards of health. Some of these boards did extremely good work and were able to introduce important reforms. Thomas Hawksley, for example, after his success in Nottingham, was appointed to many major water supply projects across England, including schemes for Liverpool, Sheffield, Leicester, Leeds, Derby, Oxford, Cambridge, Sunderland, Lincoln, Darlington, Wakefield and Northampton.

Thomas Hawksley was consulted in 1857 about the London main drainage scheme. Hawksley was also involved in the building of the Thornton Park Reservoir (1860), Dale Dike Reservoir (1864), Bradgate Reservoir (1868) and Waskerley Reservoir (1872). He was also president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1876–7, and became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1878.

Thomas Hawksley died on 23rd September 1893 at his home, 14 Phillimore Gardens, Kensington, at the age of eighty-six.

On this day in 1817 philosopher Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts. After attending Harvard University (1833-1837) he joined with his brother to establish his own school in Concord.

Thoreau loved nature and spent most of his free time exploring the local countryside. After the death of his brother in 1841, Thoreau was invited to stay with his friend, the philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau also began writing during this period and some of his poems appeared in The Dial.

In 1845 Thoreau built himself a house in the woods on land owned by Emerson. The following year he was imprisoned for refusing to pay his poll tax. His opposition to the Mexican War resulted in the influential essay, Civil Disobedience (1849). Thoreau's argument that it was morally justified to peacefully resist unjust laws inspired Americans involved in the struggle against slavery and the fight for trade union rights and women's suffrage.

Thoreau's most popular book, Walden (1854), was a long autobiographical essay in which he set out his ideas on how the individual should live his life. In the book he describes his two-year experiment in self-sufficiency (1845-47). Thoreau wrote and lectured against slavery and for many years was a member of the Underground Railway. and was a close friend of the radical abolitionist, John Brown.

Most of Thoreau's work was published after his death from tuberculosis on 6th May, 1862. This included Excursions (1863), The Maine Woods (1864), Cape Cod (1865) and A Yankee in Canada (1866). Thoreau's immense collection of journals was published in 1906 in 14 volumes.

On this day in 1828 philosopher Nikolay Chernyshevsky, the son of a priest, was born in Saratov, Russia. After graduating from the University of St Petersburg he taught in Saratov.

Chernyshevsky became a journalist and in 1855 joined the staff of Sovremennik (The Contemporary) where he wrote about literature and politics. In his articles Chernyshevsky criticized liberalism, believing it served the interests of the rich and powerful.

Chernyshevsky, like Alexander Herzen, argued that the peasants should organize themselves into communes and rebel against the power of the large landowners. He believed that the Russian peasant provided the hope of establishing an egalitarian socialist order.

Karl Marx described Chernyshevsky as "the great Russian scholar and critic who has in a masterly way exposed the bankruptcy of bourgeois economics". However Chernyshevsky was not a Marxist and was more influenced by socialists such as Charles Fourier.

Chernyshevsky was hopeful that Alexander II would reform Russian society but by 1861 was thoroughly disillusioned and wrote to Alexander Herzen that "liberal landowners, liberal writers, liberal professors lull you with hopes in the progressive aims of our government". He added that "everyone sincerely loving Russia has come to the conclusion that only by force could human rights be seized by the people from the tsar's grip."

In July, 1862, Nikolay Chernyshevsky was arrested and imprisoned for criticizing the established order in Russia. While in prison Chernyshevsky wrote the utopian novel, What's to be Done? The manuscript was smuggled out of prison and published. The novel became a popular book with students and influenced the founding of the Land and Liberty group.

The publication of What's to be Done? resulted in Chernyshevsky being sentenced to seven years' forced labour in Siberia. By this time he was released in 1883 his views were considered to be very moderate when compared to those such as Mikhail Bukunin and Sergei Nechayev.

Nikolai Chernyshevsky died on 17th October 1889.

On this day in 1910 Winston Churchill argues against giving the vote to some women.  The general election of December, 1910, produced a House of Commons which was almost identical to the one that had been elected in January. The Liberals won 272 seats and the Conservatives 271, but the Labour Party (42) and the Irish (a combined total of 84) ensured the government's survival as long as it proceeded with constitutional reform and Home Rule. This included the Labour Party policy of universal suffrage (giving the vote to women on the same terms as men).

Winston Churchill, a senior figure in the Liberal government had been a long-term opponent of votes for women. As a young man he argued: "I shall unswervingly oppose this ridiculous movement (to give women the vote)... Once you give votes to the vast numbers of women who form the majority of the community, all power passes to their hands." His wife, Clementine Churchill, was a supporter of votes for women and after marriage he did become more sympathetic but was not convinced that women needed the vote. When a reference was made at a dinner party to the action of certain suffragettes in chaining themselves to railings and swearing to stay there until they got the vote, Churchill's reply was: "I might as well chain myself to St Thomas's Hospital and say I would not move till I had had a baby." However, it was the policy of the Liberal Party to give women the vote and so he could not express these opinions in public.Under pressure from the Women's Social and Political Union, in 1911 the Liberal government introduced the Conciliation Bill that was designed to conciliate the suffragist movement by giving a limited number of women the vote, according to their property holdings and marital status. According to Lucy Masterman, it was her husband, Charles Masterman, who provided the arguments against the legislation: "He (Churchill) is, in a rather tepid manner, a suffragist (his wife is very keen) and he came down to the Home Office intending to vote for the Bill. Charlie, whose sympathy with the suffragettes is rather on the wane, did not want him to and began to put to him the points against Shackleton's Bill - its undemocratic nature, and especially particular points, such as that 'fallen women' would have the vote but not the mother of a family, and other rhetorical points. Winston began to see the opportunity for a speech on these lines, and as he paced up and down the room, began to roll off long phrases. By the end of the morning he was convinced that he had always been hostile to the Bill and that he had already thought of all these points himself...He snatched at Charlie's arguments against this particular Bill as a wild animal snatches at its food."

Churchill argued in the House of Commons: "The more I study the Bill the more astonished I am that such a large number of respected Members of Parliament should have found it possible to put their names to it. And, most of all, I was astonished that Liberal and Labour Members should have associated themselves with it. It is not merely an undemocratic Bill; it is worse. It is an anti-democratic Bill. It gives an entirely unfair representation to property, as against persons.... Of the 18,000 women voters it is calculated that 90,000 are working women, earning their living. What about the other half? The basic principle of the Bill is to deny votes to those who are upon the whole the best of their sex. We are asked by the Bill to defend the proposition that a spinster of means living in the interest of man-made capital is to have a vote, and the working man's wife is to be denied a vote even if she is a wage-earner and a wife.... What I want to know is how many of the poorest class would be included? Would not charwomen, widows, and others still be disfranchised by receiving Poor Law relief? How many of the propertied voters will be increased by the husband giving a £10 qualification to his wife and five or six daughters?"

On this day in 1929 artist Robert Henri died. Henri was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on 24th June, 1865. He studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. After returning to Philadelphia in 1891 he taught at the Women's School of Design.

A strong admirer of the work of Thomas Eakins, Henri was an advocate of realism in art. He later recalled: "Thomas Eakins was a man of great character. He was a man of iron will and his will to paint and to carry out his life as he thought it should go. This he did. It cost him heavily but in his works we have the precious result of his independence, his generous heart and his big mind. Eakins was a deep student of life, and with a great love he studied humanity frankly. He was not afraid of what his study revealed to him. In the matter of ways and means of expression, the science of technique, he studied most profoundly, as only a great master would have the will to study. His vision was not touched by fashion. He struggled to apprehend the constructive force in nature and to employ in his works the principles found. His quality was honesty. Integrity is the word which seems best to fit him. Personally I consider him the greatest portrait painter America has produced."

Eventually Henri became the leader of a movement that Art Young described as the Ash Can School. Henri taught his students that the artist's work should be "a social force that creates a stir in the world". Henri also urged artists to use the "rich subject-matter provided by modern urban life". Artists influenced by Henri's ideas included John Sloan, George Bellows, George Luks, Denys Wortman, Rockwell Kent and Edward Hopper.

In 1898 Henri began teaching at the New York School of Art. After an exhibition in 1904 one art critic noted: "Mr. Henri always has shown a desire to paint the truth. The quality in a portrait painter is likely to react to his disadvantage. When society folk have their faces and figures preserved on canvas they have a strong desire to look pretty, and a man who seeks only to perpetuate the truth is likely to be out of favour with the moneyed ones."

One of his students, Stuart Davis, later explained: "He (Henri) would talk about the paintings we brought in for three of four hours, and in the process of talking about those pictures he would criticise them not from the standpoint of some pre-established norm of excellence, but in relation to his own ideas. He'd talk about his own interests while he was talking about the painting and in the way, since he had more experience, more purposeful experience with culture in general than the crew of youths who were there, his discussions were very educational affairs."

When the National Academy in 1907 failed to recognize the importance of Henri and his followers he mounted his own exhibition under the title, The Eight. Henri argued: "The revolutionary parties that break away from old institutions, from dead organizations are always headed by men with a vision of order, with men who realize that there must be a balance in life, so much of what is good for each man, so much to test the sinews of his soul, so much to stimulate his joy."

The work of the Ash Can School became more widely known after 1911 when John Sloan became art editor of the radical journal, The Masses. Although they were rarely paid, Sloan was able to use the work of Henri as well as the artists he had influenced such as Stuart Davis, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Boardman Robinson, Robert Minor, K. R. Chamberlain, and Maurice Becker.

In 1913 the ideas of Robert Henri inspired the International Exhibition of Modern Art (the Armory Show) held in New York City. Held at the 69th Regiment Armory, the exhibition included over 1,300 works, including 430 from Europe. The exhibition, held between 17th February and 15th March, received around 250,000 visitors.

After leaving the New York School of Art Henri taught at the Ferrer Center (1911-18) and the Arts Students League (1915-28). Henri's book, The Art Spirit, published in 1923, had a tremendous influence on young artists throughout America and Europe.

On this day in 2012 Frank Foley who saved German Jews is honoured. Francis (Frank) Foley, the third of six children of Andrew Wood Foley and his wife, Isabella Turnbull, was born in Highbridge, Somerset, on 24th November 1884.

Foley's father was an enginner. Foley was educated at St Joseph's Roman Catholic School, at Burnham-on-Sea and Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit-run school.

Foley studied at a Roman Catholic seminary in Poitiers. However, the "freedom and excesses of student life made him reconsider his suitability for the priesthood and he decided instead on an academic career".

In 1908 he began travelling around Europe, taking teaching jobs to pay his way. On the outbreak of the First World War Foley was living in Hamburg. After escaping back to England he joined the Bedford and Hertfordshire Regiment in 1915. It was not until February 1917 that as a second lieutenant he was sent to the Western Front. According to Michael Smith: "Foley was just five feet four inches tall and in what appears to have been an attempt to compensate for this he had a tendency to bark orders at his men. But coming from a relatively poor background and having been educated in France, rather than at one of the English public schools that produced so many of his fellow officers, he enjoyed an easy rappirt with the troops and seems to have been genuinely well liked."

On 21st March, 1917, Foley was seriously injured when his left lung was damaged by a German bullet. After a six week stay in hospital it was decided that he was no longer fit for front-line action. A senior officer had noted his language skills and he was encouraged to apply for "secret service" with the Intelligence Corps. In 1919, after being interviewed by Mansfield Smith-Cumming, he was recruited by Military Intelligence (MI6) and sent to the British Embassy at Berlin. His cover job was Director of the Passport Control Office.

Foley lived in a flat in Wilmersdorf, a largely Jewish middle-class area in the west of the city. In 1921 he married Kay Lee, the daughter of a hotelier from Dartmouth. The couple's daughter Ursula was born a year later. His first task was to monitor the activities of Bolshevik agents in Germany. It was estimated tat there were at least 50,000 Russians in Berlin. Most of them had fled from communism but some were believed to be Cheka agents. During this period Foley developed "a long standing and officially established liaison" with the German police "for the exchange of information about Communism".

Frank Foley also observed the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The day after Hitler gained power stormtroopers hunted down Jews in Berlin and gave them savage beatings. Synagogues were trashed and all over Germany gangs of brownshirts attacked Jews. In the first three months of Hitler rule, over forty Jews were murdered. "He (Foley) was appalled by the moral and social depravity of the regime and horrified in the distress and desperation of the Jews as Nazi persecution against them increased."

Hitler urged Jews to leave Germany. On 29th March 1933, Frank Foley sent a message to London: "This office is overwhelmed with applications from Jews to proceed to Palestine, to England, to anywhere in the British Empire." By the end of the year some 65,000 Germans had emigrated. Most of these headed for neighbouring countries such as France and Holland, believing that Hitler would be removed in the near future and they could return to their homes.

Others wanted to move to the Jewish homeland in Palestine. Since the First World War Britain had administered the area with instructions from the League of Nations to "facilitate Jewish immigration". However, after Palestinian Arabs began to riot, British policy on immigration was a constant attempt to appease the Arabs with strict limits on the number of Jews to be allowed into Palestine.

James Grover McDonald, League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Germany, resigned in protest about the way that Jews were being treated: "Tens of thousands are anxiously seeking ways to flee abroad... But except for those prepared to sacrifice the whole or greater part of their savings, the official restrictions on export of capital effectively bar the road to escape. Relentlessly, the Jews and non-Aryans are excluded from all public offices and any part in the cultural and intellectual life of Germany. They are subjected to every kind of humiliation. It is being made increasingly difficult for Jews and non-Aryans to sustain life. In many parts of the country, there is a systematic attempt at starvation. The number of suicides, the distortion of minds and the breaking down of bodies, the deaths of children through malnutrition are tragic witnesses."

The number of Jews emigrating increased after the passing of the Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race in 1935. The first Reich Law of Citizenship divided people in Germany into two categories. The citizen of "pure German blood" and the rest of the population. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour forbade inter-marrying between the two groups. Some 250 decrees followed these laws. These excluded Jews from official positions and professions. They were also forced to wear the "Star of David".

Adolf Hitler encouraged Jews to emigrate to Palestine by allowing "Jews who left for Palestine to transfer a significant portion of their assets there... while those who left for other countries had to leave much of what they owned behind". Richard Evans has argued: "The reasons for the Nazis' favoured treatment of emigrants to Palestine were complex. On the one hand, they regarded the Zionist movement as a significant part of the world Jewish conspiracy they had dedicated their lives to destroying. On the other, helping Jewish emigration to Palestine might mitigate international criticism of anti-semitic measures at home."

In April 1936, the Arabs declared a general strike, began attacking Jewish property and killed 21 Jews in Palestine. Benno Cohen, chairman of the German Zionist Organisation, complained that after the Arab unrest began, the British Government limited the influx of Jews to Palestine more and more severely. "It was the period of the British policy of appeasement when everything was done in Britain to placate the Nazis and to reduce Arab pressure in Palestine and the whole of the Middle East to a minimum. There were British envoys in posts in Berlin at that time who carried out London's policy to the letter, who were impervious to humanitarian considerations and who more often worked for the greater good of the Nazi regime in friendly cooperation with its ministers".

According to a book on the history of MI6: "Most wanted to go to Palestine, but the very strict quotas imposed by the British meant that few were eligible. Foley realised the danger they were in and tore up the rulebook, giving out visas that should never have been issued, hiding Jews in his home, helping them to obtain false papers and passports and even going into the concentration camps to obtain their release."

In October 1937 Foley's relations with the Gestapo's "Communist expert" were described as "cordial". However, he was now refusing "to satisfy the Gestapo lust for information on the subject of anti-Nazi Germans in England on the false grounds that they are Communists" had alienated other senior Gestapo officials. Foley had a great deal of sympathy for those on the left who were involved in the opposition to Hitler.

Frank Foley told MI6 headquarters about the growing anti-semitism in Nazi Germany. "It is becomring increasingly apparent that the Party has not departed from its original intentions and that its ultimate aim remains the disappearance of the Jews from Germany or, failing that, their relegation to a position of powerlessness and inferiority. Indications of this recrudescence of anti-semitism are apparent in recent legislative measures, in regulations governing admission to the liberal professions, in the boycotting of Jewish concems and in the increasing virulence of speeches of leading members of the Party."

Ernst vom Rath was murdered by Herschel Grynszpan, a young Jewish refugee in Paris on 9th November, 1938. At a meeting of Nazi Party leaders that evening, Joseph Goebbels suggested that there should be "spontaneous" anti-Jewish riots. Reinhard Heydrich sent urgent guidelines to all police headquarters suggesting how they could start these disturbances. He ordered the destruction of all Jewish places of worship in Germany. Heydrich also gave instructions that the police should not interfere with demonstrations and surrounding buildings must not be damaged when burning synagogues.

Heinrich Mueller, head of the Secret Political Police, sent out an order to all regional and local commanders of the state police: "(i) Operations against Jews, in particular against their synagogues will commence very soon throughout Germany. There must be no interference. However, arrangements should be made, in consultation with the General Police, to prevent looting and other excesses. (ii) Any vital archival material that might be in the synagogues must be secured by the fastest possible means. (iii) Preparations must be made for the arrest of from 20,000 to 30,000 Jews within the Reich. In particular, affluent Jews are to be selected. Further directives will be forthcoming during the course of the night. (iv) Should Jews be found in the possession of weapons during the impending operations the most severe measures must be taken. SS Verfuegungstruppen and general SS may be called in for the overall operations. The State Police must under all circumstances maintain control of the operations by taking appropriate measures."

Reinhard Heydrich ordered members of the Gestapo to make arrests following Kristallnacht. "As soon as the course of events during the night permits the release of the officials required, as many Jews in all districts, especially the rich, as can be accommodated in existing prisons are to be arrested. For the time being only healthy male Jews, who are not too old, are to be detained. After the detentions have been carried out the appropriate concentration camps are to be contracted immediately for the prompt accommodation of the Jews in the camps."

On 21st November, 1938, it was announced in Berlin by the Nazi authorities that 3,767 Jewish retail businesses in the city had either been transferred to "Aryan" control or closed down. Further restrictions on Jews were announced that day. To enforce the rule that Jewish doctors could not treat non-Jews, each Jewish doctor had henceforth to display a blue nameplate with a yellow star - the Star of David - with the sign: "Authorised to give medical treatment only to Jews." German bookmakers were also forbidden to accept bets from Jews.

After Kristallnacht the numbers of Jews wishing to leave Germany increased dramatically. A journalist, James Holburn, who worked for The Glasgow Herald, reported large numbers of people outside the British Embassy: "Desperate Jews continue to flock to the British passport control offices in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany in the hope of gaining admission to Great Britain, Palestine or one of the Crown Colonies... A visit to the Passport Control Office here this morning showed that families were often represented only by their womenfolk, many of them in tears, while the men of the family waited in a concentration camp until some evidence of likelihood of emigration could be shown to the Secret Police. While harassed officials dealt firmly but as kindly as possible with such fortunate applicants as had come early enough to reach the inner offices - about 85 persons were seen this morning - a far larger crowd waited on the stairs outside or in the courtyard beneath in the hope of admittance. The doors were closed and guarded much to the annoyance of Germans seeking visas, some of whom complained angrily of being forced to wait among Jews and demanded preferential treatment, though without success."

Reinhard Heydrich reported to Hermann Göring that 20,000 Jewish men had been arrested following Kristallnacht.These men had been taken to concentration camps. However, in January 1939, Reinhard Heydrich ordered police authorities all over Germany to release all Jewish concentration camp prisoners who had emigration papers. They were to be told that they would be returned to the camp for life if they ever came back to Germany. Benno Cohen argued that this meant that the wives of these men besieged Frank Foley in "order to effect the liberation of their husbands from the camps".

The Jewish National Council for Palestine sent a telegram to the British government offering to take 10,000 German children into Palestine. The full cost of bringing the children from Germany and maintaining them in their new homes, as well as their education and vocational training would be paid for by the Palestine Jewish community and by "Zionists throughout the world".

The Colonial Secretary, Malcolm MacDonald, told his Cabinet colleagues that the proposal should be rejected because of a forthcoming conference to be held in London, between the British government and representation of Palestinian Arabs, Palestinian Jews, and the Arab States". He argued that "if these 10,000 children were allowed to enter Palestine, we should run a considerable risk that the Palestinian Arabs would not attend the Conference, and that, if they did attend, their confidence would be shaken and the atmosphere damaged."

Frank Foley appears to have largely ignored the instructions he received from London. "Captain Foley had to carry out official policy. A happy chance had however brought to the post in Berlin a man who not only fully understood the orders issued to him but also had a heart for the people who often stood in long, anxious queues before him. He took advantage of his powers in so broadminded a way that many who under a stricter interpretation of orders would probably have been refused, were issued with the coveted visas to Palestine. To many who had to deal with him, he appeared almost as a saint."

Margaret Reid had just arrived from London to help Frank Foley in his work. In the evening of 12th December, 1938, she wrote to her mother. "Today I spent entirely on filing - work that ought to have been seen to days before. The staff is about double its normal size and they are closing the office for two days a week in an effort to keep pace with the rush. There was a queue waiting when we got there at nine this morning and I believe some of them had been there since 4 am. When we had elbowed our way through, the porter tried to turn us away until I explained three times that we were here to work, when he laughed and took us to Captain Foley - our chief."

Frank Foley's wife. Kay, reported: "Jews trying to find a way out of Germany queued in their hundreds outside the British consulate, clinging to the hope that they would get a passport or a visa. Day after day we saw them standing along the corridors, down the steps and across the large courtyard, waiting their turn to fill in the forms that might lead to freedom. In the end, that queue grew to be a mile long. Some were hysterical. Many wept. All were desperate. With them came a flood of cables and letters from other parts of the country, all pleading for visas and begging for help. For them, Frank's yes or no really meant the difference between a new life and the concentration camps. But there were many difficulties. How could so many people be interviewed before their turn came for that dreaded knock on the door... He (Frank Foley) worked from 7am to 10pm without a break. He would handle as many applications himself as he could manage and he would walk among his staff of examiners to see where he could assist them, or give advice and words of comfort to those who waited."

Wim Van Leer was also involved in trying to get Jews out of Nazi Germany and became close to Foley. "The winter of 1938 was a harsh one and elderly men and women waited from six in the morning, queuing up in the snow and biting wind. Captain Foley saw to it that a uniformed commissionaire trundled a tea-urn on a trolley along the line of frozen misery, and all this despite the clientele, neurotic with frustration and cold. Others pleaded, offered bribes, threatened, flattered, wept, and threw fits. Foley always maintained his composure. As an ex-Army man, he knew that it was fear that motivated the heavy-coated bundles of despair outside his front door, wriggling to escape the closing claw. As a deeply devout Christian in deed as well as in spirit, he would not allow himself to be upset by the traumatised herd stampeding across his desk."

Frank Foley managed to build up a spy-network in Berlin. This included Hubert Pollack, who managed to get information about the activities of the Gestapo: "In February 1933, three prisons were built in the Hedemannstrasse, the General Palpe Strasse and the Lehrter Strasse in which the Feldgendarmerie tortured political prisoners to death... These prisons were the forerunners of the Gestapo prisons and the concentration camps. The personnel were among the most depraved sadists to be found in the various SA, and later SS, formations. Trade unionists, social democrats, communists, socialists, pacifists and other left-wingers were abducted from their homes or from the street. After a while, the bodies could be collected from the hospital in the Scharnhorststrasse."

Another important agent was Paul Rosbaud, a young Austrian scientist who was scientific adviser to Springer Verlag, one of Germany's largest publishing houses. Rosebaud's wife was Jewish and Foley helped him get her to England. Rosbaud also put Foley in touch with Lise Meitner, who had been working with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman on investigations into the products of neutron bombardment of uranium. Meitner was Jewish and after she was banned from working in Germany she escaped to Sweden. In December 1938, Rosebaud was told by Hahn, that along with Strassman, that they had split the atom, paving the way for the creation of an atomic bomb. Rosbaud passed this information to Foley and throughout the war he was able to keep SIS informed on the progress being made by the German atomic weapons programme.

Frank Foley also ran Johann de Graff, a former member of the German Communist Party (KPD) who was now working as an NKVD agent. He had first approached Foley after he discovered that his wife, also a NKVD agent, had been murdered on the orders of Joseph Stalin, because she was suspected as being a supporter of Leon Trotsky. Foley told headquarters that he considered De Graff the "most important contact I have made and convinced his genuineness". Foley was right and over the next few years, De Graff (codename Jonny X) provided important information to MI6.

Foley interviewed De Graff and sent back a series of reports on various aspects of Soviet underground operations. His ability to detail the organisation, structure and leadership of the Communist Party of Great Britain was regarded as particularly valuable. A MI6 officer later pointed out: "Details (from Foley's reports) were passed to MI5 who took executive action on the basis of information supplied by Foley".

The pressure on Frank Foley increased as it became to look as if war was inevitable. Margaret Reid was impressed with the energy of Frank Foley: "He is an active little man, wears a brown Harris Tweed jacket and appears to work 14 hours a day and remain good-tempered... He is not at all terrifying to work for and we are just managing to get each day's letters opened and numbered now that the staff is about doubled. I sit all day at the card index, with two other new girls and a man who came over from London a few weeks ago and the phone goes non-stop from nine (in the morning)... The big businessmen seem to have been preparing, some of them for a long time, and have the necessary capital in foreign banks, but more pathetic are the uneducated letters from wives whose husbands are in concentration camps (some of them have died there or are in hospital as a result of infection caught there and undernourishment). It is a panic-stricken land and many former adherents of the regime are now apparently violently anti."

Hubert Pollack, who worked closely with Frank Foley helping the Jews, later commented: "Immigration rules were very strict in those days of economic depression in order to prevent the entry of additional manpower looking for employment. But in the conflict between official duty and human duty Captain Foley decided unreservedly for the fulfilling of his human duty. He never took the easy way out. He never tried to make himself popular with the ambassador or the Home Office by giving a strict and narrow interpretation of the rules. He did not mind incurring the displeasure of top officials in the British Foreign Office and Home office. On the contrary, he was not above sophistic interpretation if he could help Jews to emigrate."

Frank Foley told his friend, Benno Cohen, why he broke the rules to help the Jews: "What were the motives that stirred him to act like this? We who worked closely with him in those days often asked ourselves this question. Before all else, Foley was humane. In those dark days in Germany, to encounter a human being was no common occurrence. He told us that he was acting as a Christian and that he wanted to show us how little the Christians who were then in power in Germany had to do with real Christianity. He detested the Nazis and looked on their political system - as he once told me - as the rule of Satan upon earth. He loathed their base doings and regarded himself as duty bound to assist the victims of their misdeeds."

Frank Foley had several Jewish friends in Berlin. This included Professor Oscar Fehr, who was in charge of eye department of the Rudolf Virchov Hospital. In January 1939, Foley managed to get the Fehr family a visa to go to England. Inge Fehr later commented: "Captain Foley gave us visas. He told us that my father was the only doctor he knew who had received permission to work in England and that he was one of only a few who had been given a permit for permanent residence in England... England gave us permission to emigrate but my father would have to retake his medical examinations before being allowed to practise."

Foley's biographer, Michael Smith, has argued: "He blatantly ignored the strict rules governing the issuance of visas to ensure that large numbers of Jews who might otherwise have gone to the gas chambers were assisted to safety in Palestine and the United Kingdom. Short, balding, and with his spectacles giving him an owlish appearance, Foley made an unlikely hero. Yet he went into the concentration camps to get people out, helped them obtain false passports and hid them in his own home, despite the fact that he had no diplomatic immunity and that the Germans, who were aware he was a spy, might arrest him at any time."

On 25th August, 1939, Captain Foley and his team were ordered home. In a letter written on the ferry to Harwich, his assistant, Margaret Reid, expressed her regret at leaving the Berlin Passport Control Office behind. "They were a good crowd there and though I was worked off my feet I enjoyed the feeling of being of use and trusted." Hubert Pollack has claimed that the Foley's team saved the lives of thousands of German Jews: "The number of Jews saved from Germany would have been tens of thousands less, yes, tens of thousands less, if an officious bureaucrat had set in Foley's place. There is no word of Jewish gratitude towards this man which could be exaggerated."

After a few days rest Foley and Reid were sent to Oslo in Norway, to establish a MI6 station in the city. Reid told her mother: "My job will be more responsible as I shall have to reorganise the office on Berlin lines and be Captain Foley's private secretary... I must say I think I am one of the favoured ones."

Foley's main task was to run MI6 agents in Nazi Germany. Most of these were former trade unionists involved in sabotage activities. (49) According to the official historian of MI6: "Foley... was posted to Oslo with general responsibilities for Scandinavia as a whole, evidently on the assumption that he would be able to meet former contacts permitted to travel outside Germany, and also be well situated to recruit neutral outside Germany, and also be well situated to recruit neutral residents who could visit the Reich."

On 7th April 1940, Foley received information that the German Army was about to invade Norway. Foley and Reid head for the port of Andalsnes. Reid commented: "The only train was not due to go for several hours. So we decided to proceed by bus. We were then very glad of the sandwiches our landlady at Otta had packed for us. We gave some to the driver and - fortified with a swig of whisky - I felt warmed and fit for anything that might lie ahead."

The couple now joined up with Major-General Otto Ruge, the Norwegian commander-in-chief. For his work with Ruge, Foley was awarded the Knight's Cross of St Olav by King Haakon VII. The citation pointed out: "On the entry of the Germans into Oslo, Major Foley arranged to join up with the commander-in-chief of the Norwegian forces who were offering opposition to the Germans. He was responsible for handling all communications between the British government and General Ruge. He spared no effort to assist the Norwegian forces in the fight against the Germans and was repeatedly very dangerously exposed to enemy fire."

Reid and Foley were evacuated from the port of Molde by the Royal Navy on 1st May, 1940. On returning to London, Foley wrote to Sir Stewart Menzies, the head of MI6, explaining the role that Margaret Reid had played and her "extreme devotion to duty". As a result she was awarded the MBE and the Norwegian Krigsmedalje. Reid continued to work for Foley during the rest of the Second World War.

Soon after returning to Britain he was appointed commander in the Order of St Michael and St George for his work in Germany. (54) Several people who Foley had helped rescue from Nazi Germany were interned in England after the outbreak of the war. This included his close friend, Oscar Fehr, who was held on the Isle of Man. Frank Foley was unable to get him released but he did write to his wife, Jeanne Fehr: "I am depressed to hear that your venerable husband has been interned and hope that his case will receive the most sympathetic consideration by the new tribunals which were mentioned in the House of Commons last night. You have suffered greatly."

On 10th May, 1941, Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, flew a Me 110 to Scotland. When he parachuted to the ground he was captured by David McLean and Emyr Morris, of the Home Guard. He asked to be taken to Duke of Hamilton. In fact, Hamilton lived close to where Hess landed (Dungavel House). Hess’s first words to them were: “Are you friends of the Duke of Hamilton? I have an important message for him.”

After the war Daniel McBride told his story of what had happened when he captured Hess. “The purpose of the former Deputy Fuhrer’s visit to Britain is still a mystery to the general public, but I can say, and with confidence too, that high-ranking Government officials were aware of his coming.” The reason that McBride gives for this opinion is that: “No air-raid warning was given that night, although the plane must have been distinguished during his flight over the city of Glasgow. Nor was the plane plotted at the anti-aircraft control room for the west of Scotland.” McBride concludes from this evidence that someone with great power ordered that Hess should be allowed to land in Scotland. This story was picked up by the German press but went unreported in the rest of the world.

According to Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm Scott, Hess had told one of his guards that “members of the government” had known about his proposed trip to Scotland. Hess also asked to see George VI as he had been assured before he left Nazi Germany that he had the “King’s protection”. The authors of Double Standards, believe the Duke of Kent, the Duke of Hamilton, Samuel Hoare and Lord Halifax, were all working for the king in their efforts to negotiate with Adolf Hitler.

Karlheinz Pintsch, Hess adjutant, was given the task of informing Hitler about the flight to Scotland. James Leasor found him alive in 1955 and used him as a major source for his book, The Uninvited Envoy. Pintsch told Leasor of Hitler’s response to this news. He did not seem surprised, nor did he rant and rave about what Hess had done. Instead, he replied calmly, “At this particular moment in the war that could be a most hazardous escapade.” Hitler then went onto read the letter that Hess had sent him. He read the following significant passage out aloud. “And if this project… ends in failure… it will always be possible for you to deny all responsibility. Simply say I was out of my mind.”

Sir Stewart Menzies, the head of MI6, selected Frank Foley to interview Rudolf Hess. Foley managed Hess's incarceration for the next ten months. Hess told Foley that Adolf Hitler "had no wish to destroy the British people", but that if they persisted in fighting, he would be "forced to launch a terrible Air Offensive" which would "result in the killing of hundreds and thousands of people". Hess claimed that he had come to Britain "because he was horrified at the thought of this useless slaughter".

Frank Foley reported: "He (Hess) is in a high state of depression at the failure of his mission and has hinted that it might be better for him to die (suicide)... He is convinced that he is in the hands of a clique who are preventing him from daily access to the King, and that the only way to gain access to the King is through the Duke of Hamilton... The present impasse is likely to continue until he has seen the Duke, who is the only person in whom he appears to have complete confidence."

Foley dined with Hess in the hope that there might be something valuable that could be drawn out of him. Their meals were dominated by Hess's obsession with the idea that the intelligence services would kill him. Kay Foley later commented: "Hess always suspected that his food was being poisoned. So Frank exchanged plates with him and also sipped his glass of wine. Frank was sure that he was insane."

The situation was complicated by information received from a German double-agent who told MI6 that the Nazi leadership was convinced that the British government was on the brink of collapse and that members of the secret Right Club such as Lord Brocket, Lord Redesdale, Duke of Wellington, and the Duke of Westminster, had "a strong following" in Britain, and that Hess hoped that his arrival would be prepared tro stage a coup "if given a chance".

In 1943, one of Foley's agents, Paul Rosbaud provided information on the development of a new weapon being created at an experimental weapons establishment at Peenemünde in north-eastern Germany. He claimed that the project under the direction of Wernher von Braun, had produced a rocket that was the first guided missile to exceed the speed of sound. This 45 feet long, liquid-fuelled rocket carried a one ton warhead, and was capable of supersonic speed and could fly at an altitude of over 50 miles. The V2 Rocket was first used in September, 1944. Over 5,000 were fired on Britain but as a result of major air raids mounted by the RAF the Germans were forced to pull the rocket base back into Poland.

John Masterman was the creator of the Double-Cross System (XX-Committee), an operation that attempted to turn "German agents against their masters and persuaded them to cooperate in sending false information back to Berlin." In June 1942 Frank Foley was chosen to be MI6 representative on the Twenty Committee that was set up to oversee this operation. One agent pointed out: "His exceptional knowledge of the workings of, and personalities in, the Abwehr, acquired during years of service in Berlin, made him a tower of strength."

Johann-Nielsen Jebsen, a senior Abwehr officer, was put under Foley's control. On 10th November 1943, Frank Foley flew to Lisbon to interview Jebsen. He handed over a wealth of information about the organisation of the Abwehr, operational intelligence and the internal situation in Germany. They considered evacuating Jebsen to Britain and using him as a "reference library", but in the end they concluded that the advantages of continuing outweighed the risks."

This proved to be a mistake as on 29th April 1944, Jebsen was abducted from Lisbon. He was bundled into the false bottom of a trunk and smuggled back to Germany. After being interrogated he was sent to the Oranienburg Concentration Camp. Jebsen's disappearance was a serious concern for the Allies. He knew about some of the people involved in the Double-Cross System including Juan Pujol and Dusko Popov. However, MI6 eventually came to the conclusion that Jebsen was abducted because Abwehr believed he was planning to defect, rather than that he had already turned.

Foley also worked with Tomás Harris on the deception plans for the D-Day landings. The key aims of the deception were: "(a) To induce the German Command to believe that the main assault and follow up will be in or east of the Pas de Calais area, thereby encouraging the enemy to maintain or increase the strength of his air and ground forces and his fortifications there at the expense of other areas, particularly of the Caen area in Normandy. (b) To keep the enemy in doubt as to the date and time of the actual assault. (c) During and after the main assault, to contain the largest possible German land and air forces in or east of the Pas de Calais for at least fourteen days."

They devised a plan of action for Juan Pujol (GARBO). He was to inform the Germans that the opening phase of the invasion was under way as the airborne landings started, and four hours before the seaborne landings began. "This, the XX-Committee reasoned, would be too later for the Germans to do anything to do anything to frustrate the attack, but would confirm that GARBO remained alert, active, and well-placed to obtain critically important intelligence."

Christopher Andrew has explained how the strategy worked: "During the first six months of 1944, working with Tomás Harris, he (GARBO) sent more than 500 messages to the Abwehr station in Madrid, which as German intercepts revealed, passed them to Berlin, many marked 'Urgent'... The final act in the pre-D-Day deception was entrusted, appropriately, to its greatest practitioners, GARBO and Tomás Harris. After several weeks of pressure, Harris finally gained permission for GARBO to be allowed to radio a warning that Allied forces were heading towards the Normandy beaches just too late for the Germans to benefit from it."

At the end of the Second World War Frank Foley was selected for work in the Allied Control Commission that was to govern occupied Germany. Frank was to be the MI6 representative in the Public Safety Branch, the organisation controlling the police. His actual role was to take charge of the Special Branch, hunting for for former members of the Schutzstaffel (SS). His main operation was against the neo-Nazi umbrella organisation Deutsche Revolution, which contained a number of groups run by former senior Waffen SS officers, including Klaus Barbie.

Foley's main success was the discovery of an organisation code-named Nursery. It had been formed by former members of the Hitler Youth and German League of Girls with the intention of "the long-term penetration of German political and economic life, with the ultimate intention of re-establishing the Nazi system." Nursery was finally broken up in the spring of 1946 with several hundred arrests.

In 1949 Frank Foley retired from MI6 and went to live with his family in Stourbridge. One of his neighbours, Beryl Price, later recalled: "He was quite a nondescript little man. You would pass him in a crowd." Irene Berlyn added: "Frank was fairly quiet, but he was a charming man. You could tell he had been a gentleman and done a lot of things. But he never spoke about it... He didn't seem to do much. He used to read a lot and potter about in the garden. But that was his life. He was always very nice to everyone, particularly to the children in the road."

He became very disillusioned with the state of the world. Foley told his brother, Andy Foley: "There are far too many blackguards in the world and the biggest of all in the Soviet Union. If only the war in Korea could be stopped. It was a bad idea to begin it, I think. I hate war and all the suffering it causes to the weak and innocent. God only knows what the next one will be like." He told his grandson, Dennis Foley, that he was now a "pacifist".

Frank Foley died at his home, 32 Eveson Road, Norton, of heart failure on 8th May 1958.