The ‘Spy’

Meynell’s name has most recently come to light in released MOD papers that detail the official, but secret, version of a set of events that Meynell himself openly described a long time ago.

The story runs, according to the official version at least, that Meynell travelled to Stockholm in 1920 to meet with Russians who had agreed to use riches and spoils from the Workers’ Revolution to bankroll the Daily Herald in London, which was a left wing paper predominantly aimed at Labour voters (when Labour actually meant Labour). The enterprising spy sent to keep a close eye on the proceedings informed his superiors of Meynell”s eventual return with riches concealed in a box of chocolates. Fair enough.

Meynell’s telling of the story, which came out much earlier, is far more entertaining. He tells of travelling all the way to Stockholm to end up in a room adjoining that of another Englishman. This Englishman over the next few nights managed to enter his room, apologising profusely when he saw Meynell was in the room at the time. It seems he later re-entered thinking that Meynell was asleep and was observed carefully examining the room’s contents. The next day Meynell met his Russian connection, got the precious items and put them in the bases of chocolates, leaving them in his room with the wrapping a little bit open. As expected, they were examined. He took them all back out, popped them into the second box he had bought and brought with him from the room, put an address on them and posted them back to England. This left Meynell free to return home empty handed, munching on some nice chocolates.

Edward McKnight Kauffer's poster for the Daily Herald

Design Commissions

Meynell commissioned one of his most successful pieces in the wake of the First World War with the philanthropic aim of brightening the populace’s lives with aspirational imagery. The advert (pictured above) for the dubiously funded Daily Herald, pictured here, was to rejuvenate the British public who had spent the previous years being subjected to sombre images advertising the war effort. The poster made its young designer, Edward McKnight Kauffer, relatively famous and his vorticist work was instantly popular.

Collection of John Donne sermons as printed and published by Nonesuch

Nonesuch

Low cost, high quality. It may sound like a slogan for a carpet sales team but this was in essence what Meynell’s first, and most enduring, foray into publishing was all about. In Meynell’s own words the aim was to release works of ‘significance of subject, beauty of format and moderation of price’.

Monotype Letterpress printing machine

Meynell used Monotype machines, as pictured above, to replicate the more laborious methods of handset type in publishing enduring classics such as Shakespeare and Homer (‘Our stock in trade has been the theory that mechanical means could be made to serve fine ends; that the machine in printing was a controllable tool.’). His press commissioned graphic artists of great and international reknown such as Rudolph Koch and produced skillfully bound masterpieces and exquisite papers.

The press issued books that combined Monotype’s modern techniques and proprietary fonts in styles that were very traditional. The output of Nonesuch was essentially the embodiment of the Arts and Crafts Movement’s ideals. Nonesuch was in existence, in one form or another from 1923 to the mid 1960s. Nonesuch’s editions are highly prized and can sell for more than £1000.

Legacy

There was much more to Meynell than simple propaganda. Although he was supported by Russian Revolutionary funds, Meynell’s patriotism was not to be doubted. As an imprisoned conscientious objector during the Great War he was, however, a thorn in the ruling class’ collective side. In funding his projects, his greatest concern was the welfare of the lower British classes, endeavouring to provide them with lower priced literature of the highest production values and newspaper reporting from a tradesman’s perspective. Such was Meynell’s strength of philanthropic conviction and quality of output that he was made Knight Bachelor, in spite of his ‘wanderings’.

Bibliography
Graphic Design, A New history, Stephen J Eskilson, Lawrence King, 2007
Nonesuch Press
The Guardian on the Newly released MOD papers
Wikipedia’s brief entry
Encyclopoedia Britannica

Original content created by: The Inquisition

Early Life

Lola Montez’s mother willed 500 pounds Lola’s grandfather – this was a veritable fortune. She married Edward Gilbert, a junior army officer with whom she had one daughter – Lola.

Lola was born in a pink castle in Limerick – Castle Oliver was built in a Scottish style from sandstone by two nieces of Silver Oliver. It was owned by the Trench family until 1978.An englishman, Nick Brown, saw it in 1998. He bought it on advice of mother and restored it. It is now a hotel.

Lola’s life of intrigue and her open-relationship with the truth stemmed from her mother who claimed to be Señorita Oliverres de Montalva, “of Castle Oliver, Madrid.” Lola’s mother claimed direct lineage from Francisco Montez, a famous toreador of Seville. Her mother was actually the youngest of 4 illegitimate children fathered by Charles Sliver Oliver and his mistress at Castle Oliver.

Off to India

Lola eloped at 15 with Thomas James, an officer of east india co (by all accounts a “smart looking man with bright teeth and bright waist coats”). They sailed to India, causing a sensation on arrival due to their 17 year age difference. She did not stay long, returning to England in 1842, alone. She now adopted the pseudonym Lola Montez, “a dancer from Spain”.

As a showgirl she received rave reviews for her looks and less favourable remarks on her dancing. She was a flop in Paris but hugely successful in Berlin and Warsaw. During this time she entertained herself with many affairs including a brief swing with the composer, Liszt. The affair ended after he gave a certain dinner party. During the evening Lola burst in, danced on a table and drenched a duke in soup.

Bavaria

At a performance in Munich (preceeded by her reputation the cheers were mingled with a few hisses “due to the report that” she “was an English Freemason, and wanted to destroy the Catholic religion”) she was noticed by the aged King Ludwig. Smitten, he gave her an allowance, a house, had her portrait painted and her foot sculpted in marble. He infuriated local nobles by making her a countess. She pandered to him for money, interefered in politics and military affairs. She united people – universally hated, riots broke out in her ‘honour’. Lola was forced to leave and Ludwig abdicated.

Back in london, the inimitable Lola married a young guardsman. Lola was a person of great infamy by now, and her dealings were the stuff of gossip columns. Wise to Lola’s past, an aunt of the young guardsman had Lola arrested for bigamy. Fearful of her anger, the young man was found drowned.

Whirlwind Global Tour

From this time rarely stopped anywhere for long. She spent time in Paris working on her memoirs, which were serialised in le pays, and holding dinner parties of great notoriety.

After a stop in NY (“Scandal does not necessarily create a great dancer,” declared one critic) she toured america – NY, Boston, Albany, Buffalo, San Fran and of course, she married again. This short lived marriage to a young newspaper editor was not to Lola’s taste and she took off to tour goldmining towns. During this time her pet grizzly bit her hand.

In a slightly odd final engagement, Ms Montez toured Australia, lecturing “on beauty”. She died back in New York aged 43 of pneumonia and is buried in Green-wood cemetery Brooklyn New York.

Posthumous Fame

Max Ophül’s 1955 film of the life of the famous 19th century femme fatale – Lola Montez follows a beautiful Irish woman around Europe working as a dancer and moonlighting as a political spy. Her conquests included Franz Liszt, Fréderic Chopin, Prosper Merimée, Alexander Dumas senior and King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Her life ended as a religious recluse after appearing as a circus act when her fortunes fell. This time at the circus is primary emphasis of the film with the cynical ringmaster (Sir Peter Ustinov) exposing her loves and her shame. In truth Lola met PT Barnum but did not perform in his circus.

Bibliography
Lola Montez and Castle Oliver by Melicina Lennox-Cunningham, Sunday Miscellany, RTE Radio 1, Sunday 8th February 2009
Castle Oliver, where Lola was born
The Magnificent Montez – From Courtesan to Convert, Horace Wyndham, Release Date: May 12, 2007 [EBook #21421]. Can be read online at The Project Gutenberg

Original content created by: The Inquisition