Bob Stewart

Robert J. Stewart (16 February 1877 – 1971) was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and was in charge of the underground cell which, in the 1930s, operated a clandestine transmitter in Wimbledon that relayed information between the CPGB and the Comintern in Moscow. He was the CPGB's spymaster and, at one stage, controlled the Cambridge Five.

Biography Stewart was born in Eassie, Angus, in Scotland, but grew up in Dundee. Stewart trained as a ship's carpenter from the age of twelve. He joined the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners and was elected to the local management committee.

In the early 20th century Stewart moved to South Africa, but returned to Dundee to become the full-time organiser of the Scottish Prohibition Party. In 1908, he was elected to the town council, but he soon led a Marxist and anti-religious split, the Prohibition and Reform Party. In 1911, he became the full-time organiser of this organisation.

During the 1910s, Stewart worked as an organizer for the Scottish Horse and Motormen's Union and then the No Conscription Fellowship. He was imprisoned for opposition to World War I, then served in the British Army from 1917 to 1919. In these two years, he was court-martialed four times. He began working with the Communist Unity Group and was a founder member of the CPGB, serving on its first Executive Committee. and the speech of Bob was "talked sense", while Larkin's speech was eloquent but nonsensical.

As the British representative on Comintern, Stewart attracted considerable attention from the British authorities. The three volumes of Stewart's MI5 file opened in September 1920 with a report from SIS that identified him as a Communist and 'a secret agent for England on behalf of the Third International'.

During 1940-50s, he shared an office with Jimmy Shield and was supported by Mrs.Bowman, a technical worker. His sight began to be failing at 1966, He died in 1971 at the age of 94. At the time of his death, he was living in a retirement home in London paid for by the British Communist Party from funds received from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. .