Olga Gray and the Woolwich Arsenal Spy Ring

Charing Cross Station

On a cold January evening in 1938, a man hurried across London towards Charing Cross Station. Weaving through the commuters, he was here to pick up a package of British defence secrets from a rogue employee at the Woolwich Arsenal. The plan was simple. Take the records to the safe house, photograph them, and pass the copies on to the Soviets. But unknown to him, thanks to a remarkable female MI5 agent, Special Branch officers had been alerted about his rendezvous. He would not complete his task.

Long-term investment

For the greater part of the interwar years, the Soviet Union and communism were seen as the key threats to British interests. The Communist International, or ‘Comintern’, a global organisation founded in 1919, advocated world revolution. Those who supported it, or were suspected of doing so, including the Communist Party of Great Britain, came under suspicion.

This is the backdrop to the dramatic story of the Woolwich Arsenal spy ring, and that eventful evening in 1938. Its origins are explained in a 1945 report by Charles Henry Maxwell Knight, believed to be the inspiration for James Bond's superior, M.

• From our collection

  KV 4/227

  Title

  Maxwell Knight's report on the work of his spy network, M Section, during the Second World War

  Date

  1945

Looking back over past spy activities, Knight refers to a key moment in 1931, when MI5 gained new responsibilities and decided to increase investigations into 'the communist underground movement'. Prior to this, MI5 had been responsible for countering communist subversion in the military and in government departments. In October 1931, however, it gained responsibility for countering subversion within the civilian population, transferred (along with some staff) from the Metropolitan Police. This was a significant change in MI5’s remit.

Knight was particularly keen on ‘the running of agents whose object is to penetrate subversive political organisations’. The agent would get themselves into a position of responsibility, which would enable them to obtain high-quality information ‘about the more sinister plans of the organisation concerned’. This was spying as a long-term investment.

The use of women as agents

Interestingly, given the narrow and widely shared attitudes about the role of women in society at this time – the view that the 'proper place' for a woman was in the family home – Knight advocated for using women as agents.

Some of his views, outlined in the report, clash with modern sensibilities. This includes generalisations such as 'man is a conceited creature, while woman is a vain creature'. He states that he was 'no believer in what may be described as Mata-Hari methods', referring to the notion of a double agent using her powers of seduction to extract secrets from lovers.

Nevertheless, Maxwell felt that women had gifts uniquely suited to espionage. To him, the idea 'that a woman's intuition is sometimes amazingly helpful and amazingly correct has been well established'.

Another question which I am frequently asked relates to the employment of women as agents. Now, there is a very long-standing and ill-founded prejudice against the employment of women as agents; yet it is curious that in the history of espionage and counter-espionage a very high percentage of the greatest coups have been brought off by women. This – if it proves anything – proves that the spy-masters of the world are inclined to lay down hard and fast rules, which they subsequently find it impossible to keep to, and it is in their interests to break.

It is frequently alleged that women are less discreet than men: that they are ruled by their emotions, and not by their brains: that they rely on intuition rather than on reason; and that sex will play an unsettling and dangerous role in their work.

My own experience has been very much to the contrary. During the present war, M.S. has investigated probably hundreds of cases of “loose-talk”: in by far the greater proportion of those cases the offenders were men...

The emotional make-up of a properly balanced woman can very often be utilised in investigations; and it is a fact that woman’s intuition is a direct result of her rather complex emotions.

Miss 'X'

Knight continues that 'one of the positive advantages of employing women as agents is that any woman possessed of some secretarial ability offers unique chances for exploitation'. A secretarial position offered the best opportunity for an agent to obtain a wide range of information within the organisation concerned, by keeping their eyes and ears open, and reporting back to their agent runner.

This judgement was based on experience. Referring to the early 1930s, Knight writes 'I was fortunate enough to be able to secure the services of a woman agent, a girl of 25 from a provincial town, who will be hereafter referred to as Miss 'X''. Her real name was Olga Gray. She was born in Manchester, lived in Birmingham, and was a trained commercial secretary. Her father was a Daily Mail night editor.

Acting on Knight’s instructions, Gray came to London in 1931. She started attending public meetings of the Friends of Soviet Russia (FOSR), which later became the Friends of the Soviet Union. Posing as an ordinary, sympathetic enquirer, Gray started to make some casual acquaintances at the FOSR, and was approached by an official who asked her whether she would like to undertake any voluntary work. Gray agreed to this and began doing some part-time typing work for the organisation.

Gray was then asked to do secretarial work for the League Against Imperialism and the Anti-War Movement. Here she got to know Harry Pollitt, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), and Percy Glading, a well-known communist leader. Only at this stage did Gray join the CPGB – this was a 'softly, softly' approach to infiltration.

Percy Glading

During the First World War, Percy Glading had worked at the Woolwich Arsenal, Britain's largest arms and ammunition factory, located in South London. Initially working as a grinder, making gunpowder, he rejoined in 1925 as a gun examiner.

However, in 1928 he was dismissed after being identified as a communist. This was a consequence of an Admiralty ban on Communist Party members serving in the Royal Navy, which also extended to the Woolwich Arsenal, dockyards and similar establishments. The Admiralty view was that the Communist Party was a revolutionary party and communists could not be regarded as loyal. They were determined to enforce this ban in sensitive defence establishments.

Glading and his wife, Elizabeth, had been subjects of interest for Scotland Yard since 1922 or possibly even earlier. There are Home Office Warrants in the archives authorising telephone, letter and parcel checks on the couple.

Strain of double life

In 1934, Pollitt asked Olga if she would undertake a 'special mission' as a courier, carrying messages from Britain to other countries. She eventually agreed to go out to India to relay messages to Indian communist leaders. Gray found the trip an ordeal as, once in Bombay, she was in constant fear of arrest.

Having arrived back in London, after taking time to recover from illness, she was offered a post as Pollitt's personal secretary. Olga worked for a few months for Pollitt in 1935 but the strain of her double life was taking its toll on her and she told Knight that she wanted to return to ordinary life. However, she agreed to Knight's request to maintain contact with Pollitt and Glading.

SECRET

Temple Bar 2151 (Communist Party Headquarters).

Incoming. 19.348

PERCY GLADING for HARRY POLLITT. PERCY was anxious to see HARRY before Easter. HARRY told him that he was in a permanent jam. He did not know where to turn. He could not make an appointment until he heard of something else which was waiting to be negotiated. If this was arranged they might meet for an hour between six and seven o’clock on Wednesday evening. If PERCY phoned him on Wednesday morning HARRY would let him know if he could manage it.

Leasing a flat – with an ulterior motive

In February 1937, Olga met Glading for lunch. He asked her to lease a flat in her name and to make it available for private meetings for Glading and his comrades, with all expenses to be met by the 'Party'. Maxwell Knight wrote in his notes about the case that Miss 'X' was none too keen to be drawn again into the Party's activities, but Knight managed to persuade Olga to go along with Glading's scheme, and she found a suitable flat at 82 Holland Road, Kensington.

Glading started to bring some visitors round to the flat – the mysterious 'Mr Peters' and next, 'Mr and Mrs Stephens', all of whom were definitely 'foreigners' as Gray reported to Knight. Gray discovered that the real purpose of leasing the property was to provide a place where secret documents could be safely photographed.

By October 1937, it had become clear that the documents in question were emanating from the Woolwich Arsenal, Glading's previous employer. Mr and Mrs Stephens were working for Soviet Intelligence and had been brought in to test the photographic equipment, but suddenly returned to Moscow, and Glading felt he wasn’t getting enough support.

On 21 January 1938, Gray had lunch with Glading, who told her that there was some urgent photography work to be done. Later that day, Gray alerted the authorities that 'Glading had just left her flat and was proceeding to Charing Cross Station, where at 8.15 pm he was to meet a man from whom he would receive the material to be photographed'.

Special Branch arrested Glading in the yard outside Charing Cross Station in the act of receiving classified documents, contained in a brown paper parcel, from Albert Williams, who, it transpired, was an engineer at the Royal Arsenal. The parcel contained blueprints of defence-related equipment, and further discoveries were made at the homes of Glading and Williams. Special Branch also swiftly arrested two of Glading's other contacts at the Arsenal, George Whomack and Charles Munday.

TOP SECRET

THE WOOLWICH ARSENAL CASE

1. ... In the middle of February, 1937, GLADING approached a Party member, Miss “X” and proposed to her that she should find and become the nominal tenant of a flat suitably situated for secret meetings. He told her that certain individuals, probably not more than three, would have the keys of the flat and would meet there at intervals under conditions of absolute secrecy. The flat would have a telephone and Miss “X” would always be advised when a meeting of the persons concerned was to take place.
2. Miss “X” had been employed for several years by the Security Service as an agent in the Communist Party, but at her own request had given up her work in November 1935. On being approached by GLADING she immediately re-established contact with the Security Service, and from then on acted under their instructions. She agreed to GLADING’s proposal, and took a flat on the ground floor at 82 Holland Road, W.14. on a three year lease at a rent of £100 per annum. GLADING provided the money for the rent in one pound notes which he handed to Miss “X”.
3. On the 21st April 1937 GLADING visited the flat with a man later identified as the Russian Intelligence Service Officer, Paul HARDT, and whom he introduced to Miss “X” as Mr. PETERS. Nothing of importance was discussed at this meeting. At a later visit GLADING told Miss “X” that another man would be visiting the flat. He described him as a small man with a rather bumptious manner.

Witness for the prosecution

Olga was a key witness for the prosecution, and although her name was not revealed, she did appear in court. Time magazine, using language of the time that focussed on her appearance, referred to 'Miss X' as 'a sample of the tempting sort of bait successfully used to catch spies by His Majesty's Government' and continued, 'this slim, bobbed haired blonde, English to judge from her accent, arrived curvesomely sheafed in clinging black, and kept shifting her fur-piece with the sinuosity of a Mae West, as she testified before a bug-eyed judge'.

The members of the spy ring were tried at the Old Bailey. Glading was given six years' imprisonment, Williams four and Whomack three, while Munday was acquitted.

1. ... Miss “X” was born in Manchester in 1906. She lived in Birmingham until 1931, when an officer of the Security Service became acquainted with her... On his instructions she came to London and in time joined the Friends of the Soviet Union. It was emphasised to her throughout her career that she should be in no hurry to obtain results. It was not expected that she would be able to produce anything of value for several years. She obtained employment as a secretary with the F.S.U. and as a matter of course she was required to join the Communist Party.
2. ... She became friendly with leading Communists, among them Harry POLLITT and Percy GLADING...
3. On the 8th May, 1934, Harry POLLITT requested her to undertake a special job for him “carrying messages from here to other countries”...
4. In February 1935 Miss “X” was asked to take a paid job as secretary to Harry POLLITT... In the spring of 1935 she became ill, probably as a result of over-work and nervous strain, and a few months later she indicated to the Security Service that she would prefer to drop her connection with the Communist Party and return to private work...
5. She resigned her post as Harry POLLITT’s secretary in about July 1935…
6. On the 17th February, 1937 Miss “X” telephoned to the Security Service officer under whose instructions she had previously worked... Percy GLADING had asked her whether she would be willing to find a flat where she would live and which could be used as a special meeting place for Communists…

• From our collection

  KV 2/1022

  Title

  Soviet Intelligence agents and suspected agents: Percy Glading

  Date

  1936–1938

According to some historians, Olga became very fond of Glading while working with him, and she enjoyed his powers of conversation, although her duty ruled supreme. Glading must have been severely shocked to discover that she was an MI5 agent. Interestingly, he told an MI5 officer, who interviewed him in Maidstone Prison on 13 October 1939, that 'he had no grievance against Miss X'. The officer also noted that 'Glading remains unshakeable in his Communist views'.

After the trial, Gray was invited to lunch at The Ritz by an MI5 officer. According to Christopher Andrew’s authorised history of MI5, this was probably Oswald A. ‘Jasper’ Harker, head of the Service's 'B' division, which was responsible for 'investigations and inquiries'. He thanked her and presented her with a £500 cheque. Shortly after this, Gray emigrated to Canada to start a new life under a new name.

Past exhibition

MI5: Official Secrets

This 2025 exhibition allowed visitors to step inside the hidden world of MI5 and explore the extraordinary stories behind the security of a nation.