William Melville
(1850 – February 1918) was an Irish law enforcement officer and the
first chief of the British Secret Service, forerunner of MI5. William
Melville was born son of a baker and publican in Direenaclaurig Cross,
Sneem, County Kerry, Ireland. A Catholic and supporter of Home Rule and
Gaelic Games, he immigrated to London in the 1860s and followed his
father's footsteps as a baker before he joined the Metropolitan Police
in 1872. He was once dismissed for insubordination but was later
reinstated and later promoted to the Criminal Investigation Department
(CID).In 1882 he was chosen to be one of the founding members of the Special Irish Branch that was founded to work against Fenians and anarchists. Melville was posted to the Le Havre port. In December 1888 Melville returned to London and assigned to protect the Shah of Persia in his state visit. His duties later expanded to the protection of British Royal Family and he foiled the Jubilee Plot against Queen Victoria in 1887. In 1891 he began to campaign against anarchists by raiding and wrecking anarchist clubs and underground printing houses. He also revealed the Walsall Plot.
In 1893 Melville became Superintendent of Scotland Yard's Special Branch when his predecessor John Littlechild retired to become a private investigator. When he fired veteran sergeant Patrick McIntyre, McIntyre went to press and claimed that Melville had instigated the whole Walsall Plot himself.
In the next ten years, Melville embarked on a large series of well-publicized raids against anarchists. He went to Victoria Station to personally arrest bomber Theodule Meunier. In 1896 Melville recruited Shlomo Rosenblum (later known as Sidney Reilly) as an informer in an organization he suspected to be involved with Russian anarchists.
In 1901 he worked with Gustav Steinhauer of the German Secret Service to thwart a plot against the Kaiser during the state funeral of Queen Victoria. In June 1900 Melville met future stage magician Harry Houdini when he came to Scotland Yard to showcase his abilities as an escapologist. When Houdini released himself easily from the police handcuffs, Melville befriended him and reputedly learned lock picking.
On 1 November 1903, Melville resigned as superintendent. According to the conclusions of author Andrew Cook, his biographer, which are not accepted by all historians, Melville then became the head of British Secret Service with the code name "M". He founded a private detective agency with one of his pseudonyms, William Morgan. Still, the service had small budget and on occasion Melville had to do the job himself.
After 1903, when relations between Britain and Germany cooled, Melville lobbied the government to create a counter-espionage service. In 1906 Melville obtained German mobilization plans and investigated their financial support to the Boers. He hired a Courage Brewery representative in Hamburg to supply intelligence for him and in 1909 went to Germany himself to recruit more agents. Melville got what he wanted In October 1909 when the War Office authorized the creation of the Secret Service Bureau, nineteen military intelligence departments. MI1 to MI19 but MI5 and MI6 came to be the most recognized.
His own section continued as a separate Special Section and he concentrated on looking for German spies. In August 1914 he eventually was able to identify the barbershop of Karl Gustav Ernst, that was the centre of a German spy ring. After the outbreak of World War I, Secret Service received more funding. Melville recruited more personnel for his section when it was attached to newly found G-section, that concentrated on investigating suspected agents. He also founded a spy school opposite the War Office at Whitehall Court. William Melville died of kidney failure in February of 1918
Irish inspiration for Bond character M
By Tom Peterkin 02/07/2007An exhibition commemorating the extraordinary career of an Irish spymaster, who was a founder of the British Secret Service, has reawakened age-old Anglo-Irish tensions. The first attempt to remember William Melville, the inspiration for the 'M' character in the James Bond films and books, in the land of his birth has led to adverse comment from ardent Irish republicans.
For decades Melville's key role as head of Scotland Yard's Special Branch has been overlooked, particularly in the village of Sneem, Co Kerry, where he was born in 1850. In a part of Ireland known for its republican sympathies, many locals would have been reluctant to acknowledge a man who worked for the British state to foil the Fenian bombing plots of the 1880s.
But in a sign that modern Ireland is prepared to recognise all the traditions that make up its past, his life has been outlined at Kerry County Museum in a major exhibition that tells of his friendship with Harry Houdini, his involvement in the Jack the Ripper case and a story that resonates today as Britain faces a new terrorism threat. "Here is an Irish Catholic, who was proud of his Irish identity, defending Britain from terrorist threats that included Irish terrorism," said Helen O'Carroll, the museum curator.
"As a Kerryman born and bred, Melville is part of our story and to fit him in we must acknowledge that Irish identity encompassed a broader spectrum in the past as indeed we are beginning to recognise that it does in the present."
Robert Beasley, a local Sinn Fein councillor, was less enthusiastic, however. "I don't think local people would want to commemorate anything to do with the British Secret Service, whether it is in the past or today. I don't see any reason to have him honoured," Cllr Beasley said.
While many of his contemporaries became involved in Ireland's violent struggle against the British, Melville came to London where he joined the Metropolitan Police. There he joined the Special Irish Branch set up to combat the Fenian dynamite campaign of the 1880s, which targeted Westminster, the Tower of London and Scotland Yard.
He played an important role in preventing the Jubilee Plot, an Irish attempt to ruin Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee celebrations. Around that time, he also unsuccessfully pursued an American Francis Tumblety, who was one of the main suspects in the Jack the Ripper case.
Two disarmed bomb casings thought to have been part of an anarchist bomb plot uncovered by Melville have been sent to Ireland from Walsall for the exhibition.
Melville established a rapport with Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, who he guided around the criminal haunts of London.Houdini was another acquaintance, who taught him how to pick locks. It has also been suggested that Melville recruited the great escapologist for espionage work.
In 1903, Melville was head hunted by the War Office's new Directorate of Military Operations. Later his work was dominated by the threat of Germany. He was part of the Secret Service Bureau, the forerunner of MI5 and MI6 set up in 1909. Three years later he discovered a network of German agents.
The SSB left the network in place, intercepting correspondence until 1914 when they rounded them up, an action that crippled German secret operations in Britain.
The James Bond connection comes through Sidney Reilly, aka Sigmund Rosenblum, an agent recruited by Melville in the 1890s. Reilly, an international man of mystery, is said to be one of the spies that Ian Fleming based his Bond character on. As Reilly's boss, Melville was known as 'M'.
"Up to two years ago I had never heard of William Melville and I'm pretty confident I'm not alone in that," said Ms O'Carroll. "There are two reasons for this. In the first place there is the fact that he spent all of his adult career in the service of the 'ancient oppressor', Britain. The second reason is because of his work in secret service. After all, the best spies are the ones we don't know about."
See also
A brief history of MI5 - the British Security Service
Vernon Kell
David Shaylor
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