F. Digby Hardy
Frank Digby Hardy | |
---|---|
Devonport, Plymouth, England, UK | |
Died | 28 October 1930 , West Midlands, England, UK | (aged 62)
Other names | Digby Hardy, Frank Hall, A. G. Saville |
Spouse(s) | Eliza Willcocks (m.1885–1891) Sarah Shires (m.1891–1918) Annie Parker (m.1918–1930) |
John Henry Gooding,
Early years
Hardy was born John Henry Gooding on 5 April 1868 in Devonport, the only son of John Rowcliffe Gooding (1837–1908) and Elizabeth Ann Furzeland (1849–1875), although he would later have four half-siblings through his father's remarriage in 1877. His father, a longtime employee of the Royal Navy, enlisted Hardy at the Royal Hospital School, Greenwich, essentially a place of education for children of naval servicemen.[1] The school recommended him to The Royal Observatory, Greenwich in 1883 and he worked under William Christie as a computer until his resignation and return to Devonport in 1884. There he married his first wife, Eliza Ann Willcocks (1865–1954) in 1885 and fathered four children with her. In 1886, he experienced his first term in prison; six weeks for forgery whilst working as a clerk in a store serving Devonport Dockyard. He was granted leniency as he had a young wife and child.[2]
Joining the
Life in Surrey
After abandoning his wife and children, who were aged between one and five at the time, Hardy left Devonport for Surrey and changed his name in the process. He adopted the alias "Frank Hall" and used this Christian name for the majority of the next four decades. Under this alias, he married Sarah Shires in Hambledon, Surrey in 1891, and fathered three more children with her over the course of the decade. The length and exactness of his relationship with Shires is unknown; his children certainly had contact with their half-siblings from his relationship with Willcocks, but Shires disappears from the records around the turn of the twentieth century.
Under the name Frank Hall, Gooding joined the
His next period of imprisonment occurred in 1899 when he was identified from his picture in
Release, disappearance and re-imprisonment
How much of his seven-year term Hardy served is unknown and his whereabouts for most of the period from 1901 to 1909 are a mystery. His account of the period makes the claim that he was attached to the staff of the
Hardy's own account of this period is the only currently known source and details how he had jobs as a journalist at the
Hardy married for the third and final time to Annie Parker (1894–1980) in
Early release and Michael Collins
Hardy was released on licence in August 1919 upon successfully petitioning
Claiming he had important and intricate knowledge of IRA arsenals in the Dublin area, he was one of 60 men swiftly enlisted with the assistance of Special Branch in London as a street agent to serve in Ireland against the IRA on behalf of a newly formed "
Unbeknown to Hardy, however, his correspondence with Lord French had been intercepted by Collins's operatives, who already ordered an investigation and compiled a large file on Hardy's life. Hardy and Parker left for Ireland in September 1920 and stayed in the Phoenix Park Hotel in Dublin, close to the British Military General Headquarters. Through Collins, a meeting between Hardy and Arthur Griffith, the Sinn Féin leader, was arranged. Hardy attempted to gain information about Collins and Robert Brennan with the intention of luring the former to his capture or death. Griffith, however, had filled the room with journalists from respected English, Spanish, Italian, Irish, French and U.S. newspapers who, on Griffith's instructions, posed as the inner circle of Sinn Féin in an attempt to force Hardy's self-exposure. The Irish journalists present were permitted to ask questions (as their accents would not betray the facade). Hardy gave a detailed, if largely fictitious, account of his life.[14][16]
Griffith's plan worked and Hardy began to engage the room in open negotiations. He offered to betray his handler, Sir Basil Thomson, by revealing a location he was due to occupy within a few days of the meeting. In return, Hardy demanded for the location of Collins, so he might use the information to advance his position within British Intelligence. Hardy promised to withhold the information until Collins was out of danger, but to still pass it on within enough time to protect his new cover as an IRA
Griffith then revealed the truth to Hardy; that the room was full of journalists and that his true motives were known to all present. An extract from a 1918 newspaper article was then read to the room which detailed Hardy's thirty-four-year criminal career, followed by the details of his early release from Maryborough Gaol. Griffith then confronted Hardy with a confession he signed in 1918 to numerous confidence scams conducted across England, Wales and Ireland between 1916 and 1918, which had gained him £255 in total (the equivalent of roughly £13,000 in 2010). A visibly shaken and distraught Hardy was then served with an ultimatum by Griffith, to leave Ireland and never return, or stay in Dublin and face the consequences. Hardy left at 9 p.m. that night on a vessel recommended to him by Griffith.[18]
Motives
The exact motives behind Hardy's actions were questioned at the time by Griffith and later by historians of the period. The initial reports from the time in Irish newspapers portray Hardy simply as a career criminal and a rogue recruited by the British government to gain access and information on Collins and Sinn Féin. The view was one-sided in Ireland and across the Atlantic where reports aired which portrayed the incident as a countered threat on the lives of prominent Irish Republicans which was simply motivated by Hardy's potential share in the £40,000 reward for Collins' capture. This was certainly the interpretation which was most promoted for the sake of Irish propaganda.[16]
Hardy himself stated during his meeting with Griffith and the group of disguised journalists that he was an Englishman who had become disillusioned with the British government and was willing to betray it for the Republican cause as revenge for his life of incarceration. The historian T. Ryle Dwyer argues that these were in fact his true aims and his hatred of the English was not believed by Griffith and Collins, who sent him away, believing him to be a threat to the Republican cause. Hardy's true intentions remain ambiguous and claims that he sided with either party are undermined by his deceptive history. Although not conclusive, it is worthy of note that there is no record of Hardy supporting any Irish Republican cause before 1920 and he had no family history of such activities. An interesting piece of evidence is to be found in the Irish newspaper reports of the time. It was generally stated among journalists congregated to listen to Hardy that Captain Thomson was a fictitious name and that the true identity of Hardy's commanding officer had been withheld to deceive Irish republicans.[19] It is now known that Sir Basil Thomson was indeed the Director of Intelligence at the Home Office, a detail which—in addition to Colonel Ormonde Winter's official after action remarks on the Hardy case—adds considerable weight to the supposition that Hardy genuinely attempted to betray the British, as it would imply that he freely solicited the information to Griffith.[20]
The Cairo Gang
Hardy's enlistment into the British intelligence services came at a time when membership of the organisation was low and a recruitment drive had been initiated by its leadership for the purposes of action in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence. While several of the most careless and high-profile members of the so-called "Cairo Gang" of British Army clandestine intelligence operatives (MO4x) were assassinated by Collins' Twelve Apostles on Bloody Sunday, Hardy had left for England two months previously, after his own disastrous attempt at espionage, and there seems to be no correspondence to link Hardy with other members of the group. He was, nonetheless, profiled closely by Béaslaí, to whom he was known as "Z499", on Collins' behalf; these sets of profiles are kept in the section housing Béaslaí's papers in the National Library of Ireland.[21]
Political consequences
The Sinn Féin propaganda people would do such a good job that many Irish people believed that the British had virtually opened their jails for any criminal prepared to serve the Crown in Ireland. This was absurd, but incidents like the Hardy affair lent it credence. – T. Ryle Dwyer[26]
Hardy's superior, Basil Thompson, remained as Director of Intelligence at the Home Office until 1921, when he fell out of favour with Lloyd George and was forced to resign.[27]
Later years and death
Hardy lived out the rest of his life in relative obscurity as a clerk to a watchmaker. He was secretive, even towards his own family to the extent that they did not truly appreciate his origins. He died on 28 October 1930 in Wolverhampton and was outlived by his third wife by fifty years and by his first wife by twenty-nine years.[28] An account of Hardy's meeting with Arthur Griffith and actions in Ireland formed part of a CIA case study on the importance of intelligence in 1969, for the purposes of staff training.[29]
See also
References
- ^ "List of occupants", Greenwich Hospital School, 1881 Census.
- ^ "Forgery at Devonport; Six Weeks' Imprisonment". Western Times. 27 July 1886. p. 5.
- ^ Hardy's naval service record from the National Archives gives his date of birth and lists his engagements from 1886 to 1888 including his desertion and imprisonment.
- ^ Janus papers relating to J H Gooding
- ^ Hall's British Army records indicate he enlisted on 15 April 1891.
- ^ "A Soldier Charged with Forgery". Sheffield Daily Telegraph. 4 January 1896. p. 9.
- ^ "Singular Charge of Fraud". London Daily News. 12 June 1897. p. 7.
- ^ "London and Provincial News". Lincolnshire Chronicle. 24 November 1899. p. 3.
- ^ "The Provinces". London Standard. 5 August 1899. p. 3.
- ^ "Former Devonport Man's Fall". Western Morning News. Plymouth. 3 March 1910. p. 5.
- ^ "The Assizes". The Times. London. 3 March 1910. p. 4.
- ^ 1911 Census. Name: Hall Frankland. Location: Dartmoor Prison. Birthplace: Devonport. Age: 42
- ^ "Greenwood Not Aware He was in Service of the Crown". Freeman's Journal. 12 November 1920. p. 6.
- ^ a b "Why was he Released?". Freeman's Journal. 20 September 1920. p. 6.
- ^ Copies of Béaslaí's documents relating to Hardy
- ^ a b "Interview with a Spy in Dublin". Anglo-Celt. 25 September 1920. p. 10.
- ^ "An English Spy Unmasked". The Freeman's Journal. 17 September 1920. p. 5.
- ^ Dwyer, T. Ryle. The Squad: And the Intelligence Operations of Michael Collins. pp. 137–39.
- ^ "Another Spy. The Unmasking of Frank Hardy and a Warning". Freeman's Journal. 18 September 1920. p. 5.
- ^ Hittle, J. B. E. Michael Collins and the Anglo-Irish War: Britain's Counterinsurgency Failure. p. 152-5
- ^ "Michael Collins: Chapters from His Life". The Cork Examiner. 26 September 1926. p. 9.
- ^ "(Griffith, Sinn Fein Founder) Accuses British of Irish Reprisals". The New York Times. 2 October 1920. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
- ^ 11 November 1920 Hansard transcript of Parliamentary discussion.
- ^ 1 November 1920 Transcript of article in The Times.
- ^ 'English Officer's Son' (1924). Ireland Today Under England. London: B. Delany. p. 709-710.
- ^ Dwyer, T. Ryle. The Squad: And the Intelligence Operations of Michael Collins. p. 139
- ISBN 0-55382-018-4.
- ^ Hardy's death certificate gives his date of death as 28 October 1930 in Wolverhampton Royal Hospital from perinephric abscess, and his occupation as a clerk in a timekeeper's office.
- ^ CIA official document, approved for release in 2005
Sources
- Béaslaí, Piaras (1926). Michael Collins and The Making of the New Ireland. Dublin: Phoenix.
- Dwyer, T. Ryle (1999). Big Fellow, Long Fellow: A Joint Biography of Collins and de Valera. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-7171-4084-9.
- Dwyer, T. Ryle (2005). The Squad and the Intelligence Operations of Michael Collins. Mercier Press. ISBN 1-85635-469-5.
- Dwyer, T. Ryle (1990). Michael Collins:The Man Who Won the War. Mercier Press. ISBN 1-85635-625-6.
- Hart, Peter (2002). British Intelligence in Ireland, 1920-21: The Final Reports. Cork University Press. ISBN 1-85918-201-1.
- Hittle, J. B. E (2011). Michael Collins and the Anglo-Irish War; Britain's Counterinsurgency Failure. Potomac Books, Inc., Dulles, Virginia. ISBN 978-1-59797-535-3.
- Kenneally, Ian (2008). The paper wall: newspapers and propaganda in Ireland 1919-1921. Collins Press. ISBN 978-1-90517-258-0.
- McMahon, Paul (2008). British Spies and Irish Rebels: British Intelligence and Ireland 1916-1945. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-656-8.
- Ó Ruairc, Pádraig Óg (2009). Blood on the Banner: The Republican Struggle in Clare, 1913-1923. Mercier Press. ISBN 978-1-85635-613-8.