Philip Graves

Philip Perceval Graves (25 February 1876 – 3 June 1953) was an Anglo-Irish journalist and writer. While working as a foreign correspondent of The Times in Constantinople, he exposed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an antisemitic plagiarism, fraud and hoax.

Life Early life and education Graves, eldest son of the writer Alfred Perceval Graves (1846–1931), was born in Ballylickey, County Cork, Ireland, into a prominent Anglo-Irish family. He studied at Haileybury and Oriel College receiving a bachelor's degree from Oxford University in March 1900. He was the elder half-brother of the authors Robert Graves and Charles Graves.

Career As a correspondent of The Times in Constantinople from 1908 to 1914, he reported on the events preceding World War I. In 1914, as a British citizen, he had to leave the Ottoman Empire due to the war. In 1915–1919, he served in the British Army in the Middle East war theatre. As a captain in Army Intelligence in Cairo he worked with T. E. Lawrence on the Turkish Army Manual for the Arab Bureau. His uncle Sir Robert Windham Graves had been British Consul in Erzurum (1895) and financial adviser to the Turkish government (1912) and worked for Civil Intelligence in Cairo during the same period. Graves exposed the Protocols as a forgery in The Times. 16–18 August 1921 After 1919, Graves reported from his own homeland on the Anglo-Irish War. He knew Michael Collins, W. T. Cosgrave, and other leaders of the Irish independence movement, and was closely involved in reporting events during this critical period of Irish history. He later worked as a foreign correspondent in India, the Levant and in the Balkans, before returning to London to work as an editor of The Times.

Awards Graves received numerous international awards and titles, among which are French Légion d'honneur that he received for his work in British intelligence during the First World War and the Order of the Crown of Italy.

Other interests In his journeys, Graves developed an interest in entomology and published articles in scientific journals. He was member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Retirement He retired in 1946 to Ballylickey and dedicated himself mainly to zoological hobbies. Here he made a study of the Irish butterflies, being especially interested in the local sub-species. He restored Ballylickey House as a hotel, which was taken over by his son after his death.

His wife died in 1935.

Graves died on 3 June 1953 in Cork, Ireland.

Political works Briton and Turk, London, Hutchinson Publishers, 1941 Palestine, the land of three faiths, 1923 The question of the straits, Ernest Benn Publishers, 1931 Memoirs of King Abdallah of Transjordan (edited by P. Graves, translated from the Arabic by G. Khuri), London, Jonathan Cape, 1950

Poetry The Pursuit, London, Faber and Faber, 1930 (in the same series of books as W.H. Auden's Poems and J.G. MacLeod's The Ecliptic advertised by Faber as "by the coming men".)