A Metropolitan Police report from 1943, 3 years after British Union was banned, described her as 34 years old, 5' 4" tall, dark wavy hair, small build, attractive appearance, dark complexion, well spoken. Ex-member of South Harrow or Ealing district of British Union. Pro-Nazi.
Eileen Lesley Gleave, née Cragg, was born in Chester on the 8th May 1909.
In 1930, she found employment with Wembley Laundry Ltd., India Pavilion, Wembley, where she remained for the next 12 years, eventually becoming head of the despatch department.
In 1934, she joined the Harrow branch of the British Union of Fascists and soon became Women's district leader. That same year, in August 1934, she married Edward Gleave who worked as a wireless engineer employed by the company A.C. Cossor Ltd. The marriage soon broke down on account of Eileen's fascist sympathies and the couple ended up living apart. She remained an active B.U.F. member until the organisation was banned in 1940.
Although Eileen Gleave had attracted the attention of MI5 in 1936 because of her strong pro-Fascist sympathies, she first came to the attention of the Metropolitan police when she paid the fines and costs imposed on Ronald Frederick Stokes and Bernard Charles Perigoe at Wealdstone Petty Sessions on 31st May 1940. They appeared on charges under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936 arising out of a disorder which took place at London Road, Wembley on 24th May, 1940. Stokes and Perigoe were two high profile British Union members who were already under police surveillance.
Perigoe was detained under Regulation 18B in December 1940. Stokes, who was former sub-district leader of the Harrow branch of British Union, was recommended for internment in the event of an invasion.
Gleave was well thought of at the Wembley Laundry where she worked. She had managed to get Ronald Stokes a job at the laundry as a van driver, and found employment at the laundry for another British Union member, 21 year old Renee Margaret Smith. Smith had been interned on 9th July 1940 as a member of the B.U.F. and for holding strong German views. She was released in August 1941 on condition that she visited a Quaker woman periodically.
Gleave also promised employment to former Harrow B.U.F. member Lena Pastorelli if she was released from Holloway Prison. She was imprisoned in July 1940 for her membership and support of British Union and Gleave frequently went to visit her. There were so many B.U.F. members employed at the Wembley Laundry that by the end of the 1930s it had become a hotbed of Fascist ideology. Gleave told Pastorelli the firm did not object to the B.U.F.
British Union was banned on 23 May, 1940 and Gleave's main activity at that time was to administer funds on behalf of the banned party. The money was used for the comfort of Fascist internees, and the wives and children of imprisoned B.U. members who would otherwise be starving. On one of her frequent visits to Lena Pastorelli, she said it was difficult to get money without calling a meeting and that could not be done because it constituted a political act. "It was for that reason Bernard Perigoe had been put in Brixton," she said.
Eileen Gleave's file at the National Archives reports that she was a member of a section of British Union composed solely of women of the most extreme views. Known as the British Union Service Corps and led by Ann Brock-Griggs, the object was to have a certain number of women for stunts of an illegal nature.
A report, dated 15 January 1940, 4 months before the party was banned, states their intention was to imitate the militant actions of the Suffragettes, such as lying down in the road to impede traffic and to disrupt public meetings conducted by members of the government. Eileen Gleave with the help of a boyfriend was to make plans for an arson attack on a London synagogue.
The British Union Service Corps was built on the cell scheme, certain picked members, one in touch with approximately six others. In a cell structure, each of the small group of people in the cell only know the identities of the people in their cell. Thus, a cell member who is apprehended and interrogated (or who is a mole) is unlikely to know the identities of the higher-ranking individuals in the organization.
On 24 May, 1940, the day after British Union was banned, it was reported that various Fascist women visited the house of a Mrs. Donovan, including Mrs Gleave, where it was arranged to continue the publication of "Action" the party newspaper. The Mrs Donovan referred to is possibly Heather Donovan, the wife of Captain B.D.E. Donovan, the B.U. officer in charge of central London.
Members of Harrow British Union are credited with forming the very first version of the British National Party. By early 1942, with British Union now banned and Mosley still in prison, former members of Harrow B.U. planned to start a new party. The new party was to be called the British National Party; it was an attempt to regroup former members of the British Union of Fascists. Eileen Gleave, Edward Godfrey, Ronald Stokes, and T. Maclean were involved in its formation, with Edward Godfrey as the leader.
Maclean tried to obtain use of the furniture and fittings of the old British Union Headquarters of Harrow district. He visited H. Hibberd, ex-District Leader of this district and asked for a loan of the furniture and fittings. It was hoped to open the first public meeting of the new party in this district. Hibberd refused to lend the fittings or have anything to do with the new organisation.
Godfrey attempted to obtain the support of high profile British Union member Tommy Moran for his new party, but Moran insisted on the acceptance of the Leadership of Mosley as an essential to his approval and support.
Despite initial setbacks, the BNP, which emphasised anti-Semitism, initially gained some support and not long after its foundation claimed to have 50 branches across the country.
In order to avoid the attentions of the government, Godfrey disbanded the BNP in 1943 before recreating the group immediately as the English National Association (ENA).
By May 1942, Gleave was still employed by the Wembley Laundry Ltd. but she was no longer collecting money to assist dependants of British Union detainees. Attempts to effect a reconciliation with her husband had been unsuccessful and she had moved to a flat at 55 Danes Court, Exhibition Grounds, Wembley.
Around this time she became more closely associated with former Harrow British Union member Marita Perigoe, the wife of interned B.U. member Bernard Perigoe. In 1939, Gleave had shared a flat with Bernard and Marita Perigoe at 24 Jesmond Avenue, Wembley. In 1940 Marita Perigoe had helped Gleave administer British Union funds to dependants of B.U. detainees.
Her mother was a songwriter who wrote the famous 1927 song Bless This House.
First and foremost, Gleave and Perigoe were National Socialists. With British Union now banned and Mosley in prison, they decided to become more active in assisting Nazi Germany.
Gleave's security file at the National Archives states that from June 1942 she began collecting information to pass to the enemy. For example, the file refers to a visit she made to Swansea and on her return marked on a map objectives of military importance which she had seen in that area. The information was passed to a woman in Brighton named Nancy Brown who Gleave thought had the means to get the information to Germany. The information was intercepted by MI5.
As for Perigoe, she copied details of military operations and equipment from her employer’s personal papers. She also made sketches of the security arrangements existing at factories she was visiting in the course of her job.
In November 1942, Gleave and Perigoe went to a block of flats in the Edgware Road to meet who they thought was a Gestapo agent. Known to them as Jack King, they offered to pass him information that would help Germany to defeat the British.
Jack King, known as Agent Jack, was working for MI5 and the information they gave him stayed with MI5.
At the end of the war, MI5 decided not to prosecute any of its so-called ‘fifth column’, partly because it did not want the Home Office to find out about the controversial operation.
Although Eileen Gleave managed to escape prosecution for helping the enemy, a few years later she ended up in court for an entirely different reason.
Part Two can be found here
References:
National Archives, KV 2/2677
Security Service MI5
Daily Mail, 10 September 2018
Daily Telegraph, 15 November 2018
