Muriel Paget
Encyclopedia
Lady Muriel Evelyn Vernon Paget, CBE, DStJ (born 19 August 1876, London – 16 June 1938, London) was a British
philanthropist
and a humanitarian relief worker, initially based in London, and later in Eastern and Central Europe. She was awarded an OBE
in 1918 and an CBE
in 1938. She received awards in recognition of her humanitarian work from the governments of such nations as Belgium
, Czechoslovakia
, Estonia
, Japan
, Latvia
, Lithuania
, Romania
, as well as Imperial Russia
. In 1916 she was invested as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John
.
, of Haverholme Priory
, Lincolnshire, and was educated privately at home. Her brother George, Viscount Maidstone, to whom she was greatly attached, died aged nine, in 1892.
She married Richard Arthur Surtees Paget
(who later became the second Baronet Paget) on 31 May 1897. They had five children, the first of whom (Richard Hatton Harcourt Paget; 6 March 1898 – October 1898) died in infancy.
Through fundraising, similar kitchens were later founded in various other areas of London through the Invalid Kitchens of London movement (which evolved from the Southwark Invalid Kitchen), under the patronage of Queen Mary
. After the outbreak of the First World War, it was found necessary to increase the number of kitchens dramatically, partly because so many hospital places had to be allocated for the treatment of wounded soldiers (which meant that other patients were obliged to convalesce at home), and partly because there were wounded soldiers who themselves were recovering at home rather than in the hospitals. In 1915, the number of kitchens increased from 17 to 29, although the numbers tended to fluctuate in proportion to the amount of funding available.
The work of the Invalid Kitchens of London continued after the War. A new kitchen was opened by the Duchess of Somerset
at Windsor Street, Essex Road on 17 November 1920. Three thousand more dinners had been served in 1920 when compared with 1919, and a Christmas Appeal for £10,000 was launched that December. She was still Honorary Secretary of the organisation at that time.
, where she set up an Anglo-Russian hospital whose primary purpose was the treatment of wounded soldiers. This was based in the Dmitri Palace
. The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was involved in the funding of this project, and other generous donations came from the UK. The following year Lady Muriel established a number of field hospitals and food kitchens in Ukraine
.
In 1917, in order to raise funds for the Anglo-Russian hospitals, she organised a huge Russian exhibition on the theme of "Russia in Peace and War" at the Grafton Galleries in London, which ran through May of that year. The exhibition included a series of Russian concerts, lectures on various Russian-related topics, dramatic performances of Anton Chekhov
and Leo Tolstoy
, etc. The opening ceremony, presided over by Lord French
, was preceded by a Russian Orthodox
religious service.
Shortly after the exhibition, she returned to Russia. However, in February 1918, in the wake of the Bolshevik coup d’état
, the majority of the British staff at the Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd returned to the UK, leaving a Russian Red Cross commission with supplies for a further six months. Lady Muriel remained in Ukraine, but she, along with three of her nursing sisters and a doctor, a number of British civilians, and the British diplomat John Picton Bagge, had to be evacuated from Russia very soon afterwards, travelling back to the UK via Moscow, Vladivostok
, Tokyo (17 April), Toronto (7 May), and the United States. An account of what she had seen and experienced in the weeks following the revolution was published in the New York Times. She finally arrived in London on 9 July, and was received by the King and Queen a week later. She took the opportunity to call British attention to the desperate appeals for aid and assistance being made in the USA by Lt.-Col. Maria Bochkareva
, foundress of the Russian Women's Battalion of Death
.
. During the following years she performed similar work in Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. She and her team of British nurses and volunteers laid particular emphasis on teaching the local populations the importance of taking precautions to prevent the outbreak and spread of diseases, and in some cases she arranged for nurses from these countries to receive medical training in Britain.
(aka Alice G. Masaryk), Chair of the Czechoslovak Red Cross and daughter of the country’s first president, a Relief Missionof the British Red Cross was dispatched with the aim of supplying Czechoslovakia with hospital necessities, milk, clothing and blankets, all of which were desperately lacking. Lady Muriel left London on the night of 18/19 February for Prague, taking with her a consignment of medical supplies. By 12 March 1919 a new Anglo-Czech Relief Fund had been set up in London under the War Charities Act of 1916, and she remained in Prague to oversee the distribution of the goods which were sent.
In order to ascertain the conditions pertaining in Czechoslovakia, Lady Muriel travelled over 3,000 miles by car over a six-week period to view and investigate things herself. She later reported that some of the problems were caused by rampant inflation (the price of clothing, she maintained, was 1,000% higher, when compared with the pre-war rates); others had arisen because during the Russian occupation there had been widespread commandeering. Cultivation was poor, the potato crop had been destroyed, and some peasants had gone to Hungary
to work there for the harvest season (as was usual), only to find that they were taken prisoner by the Bolsheviks, with the result that their families at home were left without support.
who were unable (for example, because of age or infirmity or poverty) – or in a few cases, had been unwilling – to leave Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. Since many of these were associated, in the minds of the Soviet authorities, with the employment in which they had been engaged under the Old Regime
(e.g. private tutors, governesses
, technical or clerical staff with British companies), their position became highly vulnerable, even though they might have married into Russian families or (in certain instances) they may have been born and brought up in Russia and spoke little or no English at all.
The British Government had contributed a small amount into a fund whose purpose was to provide assistance to these expatriates in cases of particularly urgent need, and a similarly small amount had, since 1924, been allocated from Lady Paget's fund with the same intention, but the plight of the D.B.S.s grew steadily worse. Soon after diplomatic relations between Britain and the U.S.S.R. resumed in October 1929 (they had been broken off in May 1927), Lady Muriel decided to go herself to Leningrad
to bring assistance.
She arrived there early in 1930. As a result of her initiatives, which included the establishment in Britain of a British Subjects in Russia Relief Organisation, a dacha
was eventually built at Detskoye Selo
. This small country house was intended to serve as a retirement and convalescent home for Displaced British Subjects. After some delays, the dacha opened in 1933, and was placed under the supervision of a Mrs Morley (formerly a matron at Newnham College, Cambridge
). Earlier a flat in Leningrad had been obtained for a similar purpose.
, a former Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom
who was on trial in Moscow for treason, made a statement to the court in which he declared that he had first begun spying for Britain in 1924, and, furthermore, that he had recommenced his espionage activities in 1934 at the express request of Lady Muriel Paget. Rakovsky's statement prompted questions in the House of Commons. On 9 March 1938, Miss Ellen Wilkinson
(Labour Party MP
for Jarrow)
claimed Lady Muriel had “been lecturing on (her) experiences as (a member) of the British Intelligence Services”.
Prime Minister Chamberlain replied that Lady Muriel had “no experience in the British Intelligence Service” and stressed that her work was “thoroughly unselfish and humanitarian”. Wilkinson retorted that “those who know something about her work have reason to doubt the statement just made by the Prime Minister”, and Willie Gallacher
(Communist Party member
for Fife West) asserted that Rakovsky was telling the truth. Chamberlain reiterated that none of the British subjects' names mentioned at the trial had ever worked for British Intelligence services, and William Leach (Labour, Bradford Central
) urged the Prime Minister to take steps “to protect the innocent victims of these fantastic stories”. Shortly afterwards the dacha was closed.
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
and a humanitarian relief worker, initially based in London, and later in Eastern and Central Europe. She was awarded an OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1918 and an CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1938. She received awards in recognition of her humanitarian work from the governments of such nations as Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, as well as Imperial Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. In 1916 she was invested as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John
Venerable Order of Saint John
The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem , is a royal order of chivalry established in 1831 and found today throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, Hong Kong, Ireland and the United States of America, with the world-wide mission "to prevent and relieve sickness and...
.
Family
Lady Muriel Finch-Hatton was the elder of the two children of Murray Finch-Hatton, 12th Earl of WinchilseaMurray Finch-Hatton, 12th Earl of Winchilsea
Murray Edward Gordon Finch-Hatton, 12th Earl of Winchilsea and 7th Earl of Nottingham , styled the Hon. Murray Finch-Hatton until 1887, was a British Conservative politician and agriculturalist....
, of Haverholme Priory
Haverholme Priory
Haverholme Priory was a monastery situated north-east of Sleaford, Lincolnshire, near Anwick.-Foundation:Gilbert of Sempringham founded the only English order of the Cistercian monks, who were given Haverholme Priory, by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, located between the villages of Anwick and...
, Lincolnshire, and was educated privately at home. Her brother George, Viscount Maidstone, to whom she was greatly attached, died aged nine, in 1892.
She married Richard Arthur Surtees Paget
Paget Baronets
There have been three Baronetcies created for persons with the surname Paget, all in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. Two of the creations are extant as of 2010....
(who later became the second Baronet Paget) on 31 May 1897. They had five children, the first of whom (Richard Hatton Harcourt Paget; 6 March 1898 – October 1898) died in infancy.
Surviving children
- Lady Sylvia Mary Paget (b. 10 July 1901 – d. 29 October 1996)
- Pamela Wineford Paget (b. 7 August 1903 – d. 1989)
- Angela Sibell Paget (b. 14 November 1906 – d. 16 June 1965)
- Sir John Starr Paget (b. 25 November 1914 – d. 1992)
The Invalid Kitchens of London
Lady Muriel first became actively involved in charity work when, in 1905, she responded to a suggestion made by an aunt that she might take up the post of honorary secretary of a charity seeking to establish a kitchen in Southwark (the Southwark Invalid Kitchen). The aim of this charity was to provide, at the nominal cost of 1d, well-prepared and nourishing meals for expectant and nursing mothers, sick children, and convalescents whose poverty would otherwise have meant that they were unable to afford them. The kitchen was situated in Scovell Road, with meals being served between 12 noon and 1 p.m. Later on, the charity’s rules were revised and the charges were assessed according to the earning capacity of each individual’s family. The intention was that these meals would be provided to cases recommended by a doctor, a hospital, or by other approved agencies.Through fundraising, similar kitchens were later founded in various other areas of London through the Invalid Kitchens of London movement (which evolved from the Southwark Invalid Kitchen), under the patronage of Queen Mary
Mary of Teck
Mary of Teck was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, as the wife of King-Emperor George V....
. After the outbreak of the First World War, it was found necessary to increase the number of kitchens dramatically, partly because so many hospital places had to be allocated for the treatment of wounded soldiers (which meant that other patients were obliged to convalesce at home), and partly because there were wounded soldiers who themselves were recovering at home rather than in the hospitals. In 1915, the number of kitchens increased from 17 to 29, although the numbers tended to fluctuate in proportion to the amount of funding available.
The work of the Invalid Kitchens of London continued after the War. A new kitchen was opened by the Duchess of Somerset
Susan Seymour, Duchess of Somerset
Susan Margaret Richards Mackinnon was the ninth of ten daughters of Charles Mackinnon of Corriechatachan and Henrietta Studd. She married Algernon Seymour, who later became 15th Duke of Somerset, on 5 September 1877, at Forres...
at Windsor Street, Essex Road on 17 November 1920. Three thousand more dinners had been served in 1920 when compared with 1919, and a Christmas Appeal for £10,000 was launched that December. She was still Honorary Secretary of the organisation at that time.
War work in connection with the Eastern Front
In 1915, concerned by what she had learned of the dire situation on the Russian front, Lady Muriel travelled to PetrogradSaint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, where she set up an Anglo-Russian hospital whose primary purpose was the treatment of wounded soldiers. This was based in the Dmitri Palace
Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace
Belosselsky-Belozersky Palace is a Neo-Baroque palace at the intersection of the Fontanka River and Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg, Russia...
. The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was involved in the funding of this project, and other generous donations came from the UK. The following year Lady Muriel established a number of field hospitals and food kitchens in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
.
In 1917, in order to raise funds for the Anglo-Russian hospitals, she organised a huge Russian exhibition on the theme of "Russia in Peace and War" at the Grafton Galleries in London, which ran through May of that year. The exhibition included a series of Russian concerts, lectures on various Russian-related topics, dramatic performances of Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
and Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, etc. The opening ceremony, presided over by Lord French
John French, 1st Earl of Ypres
Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC , known as The Viscount French between 1916 and 1922, was a British and Anglo-Irish officer...
, was preceded by a Russian Orthodox
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
religious service.
Shortly after the exhibition, she returned to Russia. However, in February 1918, in the wake of the Bolshevik coup d’état
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, the majority of the British staff at the Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd returned to the UK, leaving a Russian Red Cross commission with supplies for a further six months. Lady Muriel remained in Ukraine, but she, along with three of her nursing sisters and a doctor, a number of British civilians, and the British diplomat John Picton Bagge, had to be evacuated from Russia very soon afterwards, travelling back to the UK via Moscow, Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
, Tokyo (17 April), Toronto (7 May), and the United States. An account of what she had seen and experienced in the weeks following the revolution was published in the New York Times. She finally arrived in London on 9 July, and was received by the King and Queen a week later. She took the opportunity to call British attention to the desperate appeals for aid and assistance being made in the USA by Lt.-Col. Maria Bochkareva
Maria Bochkareva
Maria Leontievna Bochkareva was a Russian woman who fought in World War I and formed the Women's Battalion of Death.Of a peasant family, Maria Frolkova was born in the Novgorod Guberniya in 1889. She left home aged fifteen to marry Afanasy Bochkarev and they moved to Tomsk, Siberia where they...
, foundress of the Russian Women's Battalion of Death
Women's Battalion
Women's Battalions were segregated all-female combat units formed after the February Revolution by the Russian Provisional Government in a last ditch effort to inspire the mass of war-weary soldiers to continue fighting in World War I until victory could be achieved...
.
The years after World War I: an overview
Shortly after the end of the War, Lady Muriel returned to Russia to continue her work, and then in 1920 she directed a mission to Latvia, where she set up access to free kitchens, free medical aid and free clothing. She also inaugurated a system of travelling clinics for the benefit of those living in remote areas, and provided a new hospital at DaugavpilsDaugavpils
Daugavpils is a city in southeastern Latvia, located on the banks of the Daugava River, from which the city gets its name. Daugavpils literally means "Daugava Castle". With a population of over 100,000, it is the second largest city in the country after the capital Riga, which is located some...
. During the following years she performed similar work in Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. She and her team of British nurses and volunteers laid particular emphasis on teaching the local populations the importance of taking precautions to prevent the outbreak and spread of diseases, and in some cases she arranged for nurses from these countries to receive medical training in Britain.
Czechoslovakia
In February 1919, following an urgent appeal from Dr. Alice MasarykováAlice Masaryková
Alice Masaryková, or Alice Garrigue Masaryk , was one of the founding members of the Czechoslovak Red Cross and was a Czech sociologist. She was born in Vienna, the first child of the future founder and first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and his American wife Charlotte. The...
(aka Alice G. Masaryk), Chair of the Czechoslovak Red Cross and daughter of the country’s first president, a Relief Missionof the British Red Cross was dispatched with the aim of supplying Czechoslovakia with hospital necessities, milk, clothing and blankets, all of which were desperately lacking. Lady Muriel left London on the night of 18/19 February for Prague, taking with her a consignment of medical supplies. By 12 March 1919 a new Anglo-Czech Relief Fund had been set up in London under the War Charities Act of 1916, and she remained in Prague to oversee the distribution of the goods which were sent.
In order to ascertain the conditions pertaining in Czechoslovakia, Lady Muriel travelled over 3,000 miles by car over a six-week period to view and investigate things herself. She later reported that some of the problems were caused by rampant inflation (the price of clothing, she maintained, was 1,000% higher, when compared with the pre-war rates); others had arisen because during the Russian occupation there had been widespread commandeering. Cultivation was poor, the potato crop had been destroyed, and some peasants had gone to Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
to work there for the harvest season (as was usual), only to find that they were taken prisoner by the Bolsheviks, with the result that their families at home were left without support.
DBSs: the “Displaced British Subjects” in the USSR
“Displaced British Subjects”(or DBSs) refers here to the relatively small number of British residents in the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
who were unable (for example, because of age or infirmity or poverty) – or in a few cases, had been unwilling – to leave Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. Since many of these were associated, in the minds of the Soviet authorities, with the employment in which they had been engaged under the Old Regime
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(e.g. private tutors, governesses
Governess
A governess is a girl or woman employed to teach and train children in a private household. In contrast to a nanny or a babysitter, she concentrates on teaching children, not on meeting their physical needs...
, technical or clerical staff with British companies), their position became highly vulnerable, even though they might have married into Russian families or (in certain instances) they may have been born and brought up in Russia and spoke little or no English at all.
The British Government had contributed a small amount into a fund whose purpose was to provide assistance to these expatriates in cases of particularly urgent need, and a similarly small amount had, since 1924, been allocated from Lady Paget's fund with the same intention, but the plight of the D.B.S.s grew steadily worse. Soon after diplomatic relations between Britain and the U.S.S.R. resumed in October 1929 (they had been broken off in May 1927), Lady Muriel decided to go herself to Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
to bring assistance.
She arrived there early in 1930. As a result of her initiatives, which included the establishment in Britain of a British Subjects in Russia Relief Organisation, a dacha
Dacha
Dacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes often located in the exurbs of Soviet and post-Soviet cities. Cottages or shacks serving as family's main or only home are not considered dachas, although many purpose-built dachas are recently being converted for year-round residence...
was eventually built at Detskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo is the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of St. Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin and of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.-History:In...
. This small country house was intended to serve as a retirement and convalescent home for Displaced British Subjects. After some delays, the dacha opened in 1933, and was placed under the supervision of a Mrs Morley (formerly a matron at Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College...
). Earlier a flat in Leningrad had been obtained for a similar purpose.
Rakovsky's Statement - Questions in the House of Commons
In March 1938 Christian RakovskyChristian Rakovsky
Christian Rakovsky was a Bulgarian socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet diplomat; he was also noted as a journalist, physician, and essayist...
, a former Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
who was on trial in Moscow for treason, made a statement to the court in which he declared that he had first begun spying for Britain in 1924, and, furthermore, that he had recommenced his espionage activities in 1934 at the express request of Lady Muriel Paget. Rakovsky's statement prompted questions in the House of Commons. On 9 March 1938, Miss Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Cicely Wilkinson was the Labour Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough and later for Jarrow on Tyneside. She was one of the first women in Britain to be elected as a Member of Parliament .- History :...
(Labour Party MP
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
for Jarrow)
Jarrow (UK Parliament constituency)
Jarrow is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election.-Boundaries:...
claimed Lady Muriel had “been lecturing on (her) experiences as (a member) of the British Intelligence Services”.
Prime Minister Chamberlain replied that Lady Muriel had “no experience in the British Intelligence Service” and stressed that her work was “thoroughly unselfish and humanitarian”. Wilkinson retorted that “those who know something about her work have reason to doubt the statement just made by the Prime Minister”, and Willie Gallacher
Willie Gallacher
William "Willie" Gallacher was a Scottish trade unionist, activist and communist. He was one of the leading figures of the Shop Stewards' Movement in wartime Glasgow and a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain...
(Communist Party member
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
for Fife West) asserted that Rakovsky was telling the truth. Chamberlain reiterated that none of the British subjects' names mentioned at the trial had ever worked for British Intelligence services, and William Leach (Labour, Bradford Central
Bradford Central (UK Parliament constituency)
Bradford Central was a parliamentary constituency in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
) urged the Prime Minister to take steps “to protect the innocent victims of these fantastic stories”. Shortly afterwards the dacha was closed.
Death
Lady Muriel Paget died of cancer in 1938, aged 61. She was buried at Cranmore, SomersetCranmore, Somerset
Cranmore is a village and civil parish east of Shepton Mallet, in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Waterlip, East Cranmore and Dean where Dean farmhouse dates from the 17th century, as does The Old Smithy, just off the A361 which was originally two...
.
Biography
- Blunt, Wilfrid, Lady Muriel: Lady Muriel Paget, her Husband, and her Philanthropic Work in Central and Eastern Europe. London, Methuen & Co., 1962. ISBN 9781135895709.