Thomas Edward Neil Driberg, Baron Bradwell, was a British journalist, politician, High Anglican churchman and possible Soviet spy. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1942 to 1955, and again from 1959 to 1974. After his death, allegations were published about his role over many years as an MI5 informant, a KGB agent, or both. The extent and nature of Driberg’s involvement with these agencies remain uncertain.
About Tom Driberg in brief
Thomas Edward Neil Driberg, Baron Bradwell, was a British journalist, politician, High Anglican churchman and possible Soviet spy. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1942 to 1955, and again from 1959 to 1974. The son of a retired colonial officer, Driberg was educated at Lancing and Christ Church, Oxford. After leaving the university without a degree, he attempted to establish himself as a poet before joining the Daily Express as a reporter, later becoming a columnist. Driberg made no secret of his homosexuality, which he practised throughout his life despite its being a criminal offence in Britain until 1967. After his death, allegations were published about his role over many years as an MI5 informant, a KGB agent, or both. The extent and nature of Driberg’s involvement with these agencies remain uncertain. He retired from the House of Commons in 1974, and was subsequently raised to the peerage as BaronBradwell, of Bradwell juxta Mare in the County of Essex. He wrote several books, including biographies of the press baron Lord Beaverbrook and the Soviet spy Guy Burgess. He was also a regular columnist for the Co-operative Group newspaper Reynold’s News and for other left-leaning journals. He befriended at various times the occultist Aleister Crowley and the Kray twins, along with honoured and respected figures in the worlds of literature and politics. He combined this lifestyle with an unwavering devotion to Anglo-Catholicism.
He would later describe Crowborough as “a place which I can never revisit, or think of, without a feeling of sick horror”; he later described it as a place he could never revisit without feeling “sick horror” He was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain for more than twenty years, and joined the Labour Party in 1945. He never held any ministerial office, but rose to senior positions within the Labour party and was a popular and influential figure in left-wing politics for many years. In 1920 he joined the Brighton branch of the newly formed British Communist Party. By the 1920s he was inclining to the political left and was in rebellion against his conservative upbringing. In 1923 he left the school where he had been a pupil to join the Lancing Lancing School. He later became the headmaster of Stowe School in Worthing, where he taught at the same time as Evelyn Waugh. He died in a car crash in 1975, at the age of 69. He is buried in the town of Crowborough, south of London, with his wife Amy Mary Irving Driberg and their three children. His family had immigrated from Holland about 200 years previously; the Bells were lowland Scots from Dumfriesshire. His father had retired in 1896 after 35 years in Assam, latterly as head of the state’s police, and he was 65 years old when his youngest son was born. The Driberg family had moved to Crowborough in 1905.
You want to know more about Tom Driberg?
This page is based on the article Tom Driberg published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 22, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
