Maundy Gregory

Arthur John Maundy Gregory, who later used the name Arthur John Peter Michael Maundy Gregory (1 July 1877 – 28 September 1941) was a British theatre producer and political fixer who is best remembered for selling honours for the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. He may also have been involved with the Zinoviev letter, the disappearance of Victor Grayson, and the suspicious death of his platonic companion, Edith Rosse. Gregory claimed to be a spy for British intelligence.

Early life Gregory was born in Southampton, Hampshire, the son of Francis Maundy Gregory, vicar of St Michael's, Southampton, and Elizabeth Ursula, daughter of Mayow Wynell-Mayow, rector of Southam, Warwickshire, and head of a Cornwall landed gentry family.

Gregory attended Banister Court school in Southampton. A classmate was Harold Davidson, later known as the Rector of Stiffkey. He attended Oxford University as a non-collegiate student, but left in 1899, before graduation. Gregory became a teacher, and later worked as an actor and theatre producer.

Much of the information about Gregory comes from his own papers and curriculum vitae, the truth of which is questionable. According to these sources, Vernon Kell, head of MI5, recruited Gregory in 1909, possibly because of Gregory's connections from London's nightlife. At MI5, Gregory mainly compiled dossiers on suspected foreign spies living in London. Later, Sidney Reilly allegedly recruited Gregory for the recently formed MI6.

Gregory referred to his alleged time at MI5 and MI6 when he asserted that he had raised funds for the fight against Bolshevism. Official records verify that Gregory served as a private in the Irish Guards, but do not verify his time at MI5 or MI6. Gregory claimed that at about the same time he claimed he was working for MI5 and MI6, he became acquainted with Basil Thomson, the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police's Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The relationship between Gregory and Thomson lasted for several years. In 1919 Gregory opened a newspaper The Whitehall Gazette and St James's Review to which Thomson contributed an anonymous piece.

Selling honours Around 1918, Gregory approached the Liberal Party to arrange payments to the party in exchange for peerages. He was one of many to do this. David Lloyd George hired him as a broker to gather funding for the United Constitutional Party Lloyd George was planning to form.

At the time, prices for honours ranged from £10,000 (over £400,000 in 2023 ) for a knighthood to £40,000 (2023 £1.6 million) for a baronetcy. Later estimates state that Gregory transferred £1–2 million (2023 £40–80 million) to the Liberal and Conservative parties. He made around £3 million a year, which he used to buy the Whitechapel Gazette newspaper and considerable real estate, including the Ambassador Club in Soho and the Deepdene Hotel, Dorking, Surrey. Reportedly, Gregory gathered gossip about the sex lives of contemporary celebrities who stayed at the two properties. The Dorking hotel gained the reputation of being "the biggest brothel in southeast England",

According to published MI5 files, when Russian diplomat Ivan Korostovets tried to recruit Gregory to work against the Bolsheviks, Gregory used the Anglo-Ukrainian Fellowship as a front to continue his peerage sales and kept all the money for himself.

Gregory also continued to accept money for British peerages from people unaware that he could no longer provide them. Those who paid him had no legal recourse; they could neither report him to the authorities nor sue in civil court without themselves being prosecuted under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925. In 1930, Gregory was sued for £30,000 by the estate of a baronet who had died before receiving a peerage purchased from him,

After the German occupation of France during the Second World War in 1940, he was captured and sent to a labour camp. Sources reporting Gregory's death are conflicting. He reportedly died on 28 September 1941, either at an internment camp

References in popular fiction In the 1993 novel Closed Circle by Robert Goddard, the main character, Guy Horton, meets Gregory, who employs him to encourage wealthy businessmen to use his services to obtain peerages.