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In 1951 he became more involved, facilitating the defections of Burgess and Maclean (another Cambridge spy), although he refused to follow his handler’s suggestion and defect with them. "[28] Blunt often visited Morshead's home in Windsor. Explore Anthony Blunt's biography, personal life, family and cause of death. In 1940, most of his fellowship dissertation was published under the title of Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450–1600, which remains in print. He was tasked with running agents to infiltrate foreign embassies. Discover the real story, facts, and details of Anthony Blunt. [15] The painting was sold by Blunt's executors in 1985 for £100,000 (totalling £192,500 with tax remission[16]) and is now in Cambridge University's Fitzwilliam Museum. Both were members of the Cambridge Apostles (also known as the Conversazione Society), a clandestine Cambridge discussion group of 12 undergraduates, mostly from Trinity and King's Colleges who considered themselves to be the brightest minds. Anthony Blunt was a revered art historian who was uncovered as a former Soviet spy in 1979. You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. [8], After Margaret Thatcher had exposed Blunt's espionage, he continued his art history work by writing and publishing a Guide to Baroque Rome (1982). In 1945, he was given the distinguished position of Surveyor of the King's Pictures, and later the Queen's Pictures (after the death of King George VI in 1952), in charge of the Royal Collection, one of the largest and richest collections of art in the world… [72][73], In 1953, Blunt published his book Art and Architecture in France, 1500–1700 in the Penguin History of Art (later taken over by Yale UP), and he was in particular an expert on the works of Nicolas Poussin, writing numerous books and articles about the painter, and serving as curator for a landmark exhibition of Poussin at the Louvre in 1960, which was an enormous success. Malcolm Muggeridge, himself a wartime British agent, recalls meeting Kim Philby and Victor Rothschild, a friend of Blunt since Trinity College, Cambridge. Anthony Blunt. Find out more, The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Blunt quoted E. M. Forster's belief that country was less important than friendship. In 1947, Blunt became both Professor of the History of Art at the University of London, and the director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, where he had been lecturing since the spring of 1933,[70] and where his tenure in office as director lasted until 1974. Cambridge Forecast Group, 22 September 2010; Carter 2001, pp. [10][35][36] Carter allows that, while George VI may have also asked Blunt and Morshead to be on the alert for any documents relating to the Duke of Windsor, "it seems unlikely that they found any. In 1964, he confessed to having been a spy for the Soviet Union and was part of the spy group the Cambridge Five. In MI5, Blunt began passing the results of Ultra intelligence (from decrypted Enigma intercepts of Wehrmacht radio traffic on the Eastern Front) to the Soviets, as well as details of German spy rings operating in the Soviet Union. Blunt served as the royal's official art curator—a.k.a. The first thing that comes to… Mother of Anthony Frederick Blunt; Wilfrid Blunt and Christopher Evelyn Blunt Sister of Mildred Estella Sybella Master [8], He was educated at Marlborough College, a boys' public school in Marlborough, Wiltshire. sulla teoria dell'arte di Anthony Blunt", Varriano, John (1996). "La critica della ragione. In 1964 Blunt admitted his treason. if you betray your country, you by definition betray all your friends in that country..."[62], Queen Elizabeth II stripped Blunt of his knighthood,[59] and in short order he was removed as an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College. [7], Blunt was born in Bournemouth, in Hampshire at that time but currently in Dorset, the third and youngest son of a vicar, the Revd (Arthur) Stanley Vaughan Blunt (1870–1929), and his wife, Hilda Violet (1880–1969), daughter of Henry Master of the Madras civil service. [32], Miranda Carter mentions that other versions of the story, which claim that the trip was to retrieve letters from the Duke of Windsor to Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse, the owner of Friedrichshof, in which the Duke knowingly revealed Allied secrets to Hitler, have some credibility, given the Duke's known Nazi sympathies. [10] He[clarification needed] also named Jenifer Hart, Phoebe Pool, John Cairncross, Peter Ashby, Brian Symon and Leonard Henry (Leo) Long as spies. For although the Soviet Union was now an ally, Russians were not trusted. [40] The king had good reason to worry. [59], For weeks after Thatcher's announcement, Blunt was hunted by the press. His confession, a closely guarded secret for years, was revealed publicly by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in November 1979. Blunt was a member of the ‘Cambridge Five’ spy ring during World War Two.He turned his back on communism after the war and became a pillar of the establishment. Contribute. Maclean was in imminent danger due to decryptions from Venona as the messages were decrypted. Thus, each link in the communications chain knew only one particular job and not the overall Ultra details. Blunt was born in Bournemouth, Hampshire, the third and youngest son of a vicar, the Revd (Arthur) Stanley Vaughan Blunt (1870–1929), and his wife, Hilda Violet (1880–1969), daughter of Henry Master of the Madras civil service. 6821179, citing Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium, Putney Vale, London Borough of Wandsworth, Greater London, England ; Maintained by Find A Grave . The Rothschilds brought their friend and lodger – Blunt. 4, p. 182, in, This page was last edited on 11 April 2021, at 15:53. Of the Cambridge spy ring, perhaps the most surprising was Anthony Frederick Blunt – a notable academic, a relative of the Queen Mother, and the least ideologically motivated of the group. The public was not told of his treachery until November 1979, when Margaret Thatcher announced to the Commons that Blunt was the “fourth man”. Bowle thought Blunt had "too much ink in his veins and belonged to a world of rather prissy, cold-blooded, academic puritanism". [50], Blunt's life was little affected by the knowledge of his treachery. Jon Nordheimer, the author of Blunt's obituary in The New York Times, wrote: "Details of the nature of the espionage carried out by Mr. Blunt for the Russians have never been revealed, although it is believed that they did not directly cause loss of life or compromise military operations."[65]. His 1967 monograph on the French Baroque painter Nicolas Poussin is still widely regarded as a watershed book in art history. After the war, Blunt moved out of frontline intelligence. Blunt admitted to recruiting Cairncross and may well have been the cut-out between Cairncross and the Soviet contacts. Chastel, André (1983). Golding passed them on to the British Library, insisting that they not be released for 25 years. "I think he was being absolutely straight with me when he said that if he could not verify the facts there was no point in going on." Educated at Marlborough College, Blunt was a contemporary of John Betjeman and British historian, John Edward Bowle. The revelation provoked widespread anger, and Blunt was stripped of his knighthood and fellowships. He passed analyses but not original material relating to the Eastern Front to Blunt. Image: Getty. [46] Indeed, in return for a full confession, the British government agreed to keep his spying career an official secret, though only for fifteen years, and granted him full immunity from prosecution. Sir Anthony Blunt was a member of the Queen's household when he was revealed to be a Russian spy, according to The Crown Season 3 on Netflix. All the while, Blunt was in touch with his Soviet handlers, passing them secrets while Russia was Germany’s ally, and afterwards. Anthony Blunt, a former curator of Queen Elizabeth II's art collection who in 1979 was exposed as having been the mysterious fourth man in a Soviet spying ring, collapsed and died … They were finally made available to readers on 23 July 2009 and can be accessed through the British Library catalogue. Blunt acknowledged that he had recruited spies for the Soviet Union from among young radical students at Cambridge, passed information to the Russians while he served as a high-ranking British intelligence officer during World War II, and had helped two of his former Cambridge students who had become Soviet moles inside the British Foreign Service, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, escape to the Soviet Union in 1951 just as their activities were about to be exposed. Merz published a book, Pietro da Cortona and Roman Baroque Architecture in 2008 incorporating a draft by the late Anthony Blunt. [34] Variants of this version have been published by several authors. [55] While at the Courtauld, Blunt contributed photographs to the Conway Library of art and architecture, which are currently being digitised. In November 1979, then PM Margaret Thatcher formally advised Parliament of Blunt's treachery and the immunity deal that had been arranged. Sensitive receivers could pick up transmissions, relating to German war plans, from Berlin. Before his death, he penned his own version of the extraordinary events in a 30,000-word autobiographical manuscript; his history, through his … [59], Blunt died of a heart attack at his London home in 1983, aged 75. He is often credited for making the Courtauld what it is today, as well as for pioneering art history in Britain, and for training the next generation of British art historians. Is it a real story? Please do not pursue this matter. The height of his espionage activity was during World War II, when he passed intelligence on Wehrmacht plans that the British government had decided to withhold from its ally. He was incredibly calm about it all. [6] His teaching text and reference work Art and Architecture in France 1500–1700, first published in 1953, reached its fifth edition in a slightly revised version by Richard Beresford in 1999, when it was still considered the best account of the subject. Blunt stopped writing in 1983, leaving his memoirs to his partner, John Gaskin, who kept them for a year and then gave them to Blunt's executor, John Golding, a fellow art historian. His writing is lucid, and places art and architecture in their context in history. Rees suggested that Burgess had gone to the Soviet Union because of his violent anti-Americanism and belief that America would involve Britain in a Third World War, and that he was a Soviet agent. Some information concerned German preparations and detailed plans for the Battle of Kursk, the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. [63] Blunt resigned as a Fellow of the British Academy after a failed effort to expel him; three fellows resigned in protest against the failure to remove him. [41], Some people knew of Blunt's role as a Soviet spy long before his public exposure. the Surveyor of the King and Queen's Pictures—for 29 years, working for both the queen and her father, King George VI. After a successful run in London's West End, it was made into a television play directed by John Schlesinger and starring James Fox, Prunella Scales and Geoffrey Palmer. [26], During the war, Blunt attained the rank of major. [51], In 1979, Blunt's role was represented in Andrew Boyle's book Climate of Treason, in which Blunt was given the pseudonym 'Maurice', after the homosexual protagonist of E. M. Forster's novel of that name. CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (, Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Blunt, Prof. Anthony (Frederick), (26 Sept. 1907–26 March 1983), Professor of the History of Art, University of London, and Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, 1947–September 1974; Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, 1952–72 (of the Pictures of King George VI, 1945–52); Adviser for the Queen's Pictures and Drawings, 1972–78", "Anthony Blunt: confessions of spy who passed secrets to Russia during the war", "ANTHONY BLUNT, FOURTH MAN IN BRITISH SPYING SCANDAL, IS DEAD AT 75", "Anthony Blunt memoir reveals spy's regret at 'the biggest mistake of my life, "PM was not told Anthony Blunt was Soviet spy, archives reveal", "Historian who brought Anthony Blunt to book", "Blunt, Anthony Frederick (1907–1983), art historian and spy", "Brian Sewell: Soviet double agent Anthony Blunt did no harm to Britain", "Enigma Anthony Blunt devoted his life to art—and espionage", "Anthony Blunt, Fourth Man in British Spying Scandal, Is Dead at 75", "Memoirs of British Spy Offer No Apology", "The Courtauld's Witt and Conway Photographic Libraries: Two approaches to digitisation", "The Crown: Queen Elizabeth's Real-Life Betrayal Inside Buckingham Palace", "Anthony Blunt, the Royal Art Curator Who Was Actually a Soviet Spy, Has a Surprising Star Turn in Netflix's 'The Crown, "Liberation Square by Gareth Rubin - book review: Meticulous research, a rich layer of authentic detail and an intelligent imagining of a dark, dangerous and disturbing social and political landscape", "Editorial: Anthony Blunt and the Courtauld Institute", BBC Newsnight: Blunt's art tapes revealed/Courtauld Institute, 'Blunt Instrument', review of Blunt's memoir, Interview with biographer Miranda Carter on "Anthony Blunt: His Lives", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthony_Blunt&oldid=1017226229, Directors of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, LGBT civil servants from the United Kingdom, People stripped of a British Commonwealth honour, Slade Professors of Fine Art (University of Oxford), Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB, Pages using infobox spy with unknown parameters, Articles having different image on Wikidata and Wikipedia, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from September 2020, Articles needing additional references from March 2019, All articles needing additional references, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with RKDartists identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Semantic Scholar author identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Anthony Blunt, 'French Painting, Sculpture and Architecture since 1500,' in, Anthony Blunt, 'Rubens and architecture,', Anthony Blunt, 'Roman Baroque Architecture: the Other Side of the Medal,'. In 1945, he was given the distinguished position of Surveyor of the King's Pictures, and later the Queen's Pictures (after the death of King George VI in 1952), in charge of the Royal Collection, one of the largest and richest collections of art in the world. He also catalogued the French drawings (1945), G. B. Castiglione and Stefano della Bella drawings (1954) Roman drawings (with H. L. Cooke, 1960) and Venetian (with Edward Croft-Murray, 1957) drawings in the Royal Collection, as well as a supplement of Addenda and Corrigenda to the Italian catalogues (in E. Schilling's German Drawings). When the Wehrmacht drove British forces back to Dunkirk in May 1940, he was part of the Dunkirk evacuation. Anthony Blunt" is a poem by Gavin Ewart, cleverly attempting a humane corrective to the hysteria over Blunt's fall from grace. However, he was soon drawn into other areas, including involvement with the ULTRA programme by which Bletchley Park decoded the Nazi’s military signals intelligence. As a Cambridge don, Blunt visited the Soviet Union in 1933, and was possibly recruited in 1934. [55], Many of his publications are still seen today by scholars as integral to the study of art history. In 1940, most of his fellowship dissertation was published under the title of Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450–1600, which remains in print. He was a third cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. "[31], In the final days of World War II in Europe, King George VI asked Blunt to accompany Morshead on a trip in August 1945 to Friedrichshof Castle near Frankfurt, Germany, to retrieve letters (almost 4,000 of them) written by Queen Victoria to her daughter, Empress Victoria, the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. Blunt stopped writing some months before his death in 1983 leaving his estate - including the memoir - to Gaskin. [8], Like Guy Burgess, Blunt was known to be homosexual,[11] which was a criminal offence at the time in Britain. All had had wartime connections with British Intelligence; Jenkins at Bletchley Park. At that time, scholars at Cambridge University were allowed to skip Part I of the Tripos examinations and complete Part II in two years. "Anthony Blunt, art historian (1907–1983)", De Seta, Cesare (1991). His predecessor, Kenneth Clark, had resigned earlier that year. "[67] After he was publicly exposed, he claims to have considered suicide but instead turned to "whisky and concentrated work". Anthony Blunt (left), photographed in 1929 with his friends from Cambridge. They repeatedly telephoned Haskell's home in the early hours of the morning, using the names of his friends and claiming to have an urgent message for "Anthony". Prior to that, he had a briefing with Michael Adeane, the Queen's private secretary, who told Wright: "From time to time you may find Blunt referring to an assignment he undertook on behalf of the Palace – a visit to Germany at the end of the war. With the invasion of Poland by German and Soviet forces, Blunt joined the British Army in 1939. He was a third cousin of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother: his mother was the second cousin of Elizabeth's father Cl… Donte Jermaine Hall was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders. "Technically there was no defamation, and Boyle's editor, Harold Harris, refused to cooperate. Published in Gavin Ewart, Selected Poems 1933–1993, Hutchenson, 1996 (reprinted Faber and Faber, 2011). [48], According to the memoir of MI5 officer Peter Wright, Wright had regular interviews with Blunt from 1964 onwards for six years. [8] Arthur Martin and Jim Skardon had interviewed Blunt eleven times since 1951, but Blunt had admitted nothing. West reprised the role in The Crown (2019), in "Olding" the premiere episode of the third season. In September 1979, Blunt had tried to obtain a typescript before the publication of Boyle's book. "A Spy in the House of Art: The Marxist Criticism of Anthony Blunt". Read a review of Anthony Blunt: His Lives. [20] Shortly after meeting Deutsch, writes Carter, Blunt became a Soviet "talent spotter" and was given the NKVD code name 'Tony'. [66], In the typed manuscript, Blunt conceded that spying for the Soviet Union was the biggest mistake of his life. The atmosphere in Cambridge was so intense, the enthusiasm for any anti-fascist activity was so great, that I made the biggest mistake of my life. He was certainly on friendly terms with Sir Dick White, the head of MI5 and later MI6, in the 1960s, and they used to spend Christmas together with Victor Rothschild in Rothschild's Cambridge house. Anthony Blunt, in full Anthony Frederick Blunt, also called (1956–79) Sir Anthony Blunt, (born Sept. 26, 1907, Bournemouth, Hampshire, Eng.—died March 26, 1983, London), British art historian who late in his life was revealed to have been a Soviet spy. [29] Blunt's student Oliver Millar, who would become his successor as Surveyor, said, "I think Anthony was happier there than many other places". The Royal Librarian, Owen Morshead, who had become friends with Blunt during the two years he worked in the Royal Collection, recommended him for the job. [32] The letters rescued by Morshead and Blunt were deposited in the Royal Archives[33] and were returned in 1951. [8] Before the war, MI5 employed mostly former members of the Indian Imperial Police.[24]. Burgess persuaded him not to join the communist party, but to work directly with Stalin's administration. [54][55], Based on an interview with Blunt's solicitor, Michael Rubinstein, who had met with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, Blunt's biographer Miranda Carter states that Thatcher, "personally affronted by Blunt's immunity, took the bait. This position included the use of a live-in apartment on the premises, then at Home House in Portman Square. For once, Philby reportedly dropped his reserve, and agreed. The Queen stripped Anthony Blunt of his knighthood immediately after the news broke, and though he remained in London, Blunt lived as a recluse until he died of a heart attack in 1983 at age 75. 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Sir Anthony Blunt confessed that he was the ‘fourth man’ in the Cambridge spy ring. His graduate research was in French art history and he travelled frequently to continental Europe in connection with his studies. He argued that "Burgess had told me he was a spy in 1936 and I had not told anyone. ER doctor who declared George Floyd dead tells jury he believes cause of death was suffocation - and that there was nothing to suggest heart attack or drug overdose A festschrift, Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art presented to Anthony Blunt on his 60th Birthday, Phaidon 1967 (introduction by Ellis Waterhouse), contains a full list of his writings up to 1966. [58], In a statement to the news media on 20 November, Blunt claimed the decision to grant him immunity from prosecution was taken by the then prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Although in later life he downplayed his role and the utility of the intelligence he handed over, the Soviet archives contain over a thousand classified documents provided by Blunt. "I do know he was really worried about upsetting his family," said Sewell. Throughout the time of his activities in espionage, Blunt's public career was as an art historian, a field in which he gained eminence. Blunt confessed to MI5 on 23 April 1964, and Queen Elizabeth II was informed shortly thereafter. There was a signed agreement made at the time, since the royal family did not own the documents. With the defection of Burgess and Maclean to Moscow in May 1951, Blunt came under suspicion. He was convinced that the confession would be kept secret. He was to warn Maclean, who now worked in the Foreign Office but was under surveillance and isolated from secret material. [71] During his 27 years at the Courtauld Institute, Blunt was respected as a dedicated teacher, a kind superior to his staff. [53] In early November excerpts were published in The Observer, and on 8 November Private Eye revealed that 'Maurice' was Blunt. [61], In 1979, Blunt said that the reason for his betrayal of Britain could be explained by the EM Forster adage "if asked to choose between betraying his friend and betraying his country, he hoped he would have the guts to betray his country". Strictly speaking, it is not relevant to considerations of national security. Blunt: The Fourth Man is a 1985 television film starring Ian Richardson, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Williams, and Rosie Kerslake, covering the events of 1951 when Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean went missing. Carter 2001, pp. Photograph: PA Later, he was described by a KGB officer as an "ideological shit".[42]. Burgess returned on the Queen Mary to Southampton after being suspended from the British Embassy in Washington for his conduct. Amongst other members were Victor Rothschild and the American Michael Whitney Straight, the latter also later suspected of being part of the Cambridge spy ring. [8] After WWII, Blunt's espionage activity diminished, but he retained contact with Soviet agents and continued to pass them gossip from his former MI5 colleagues and documents from Burgess. Although ordered by the KGB to defect with Maclean and Burgess to protect Philby, in 1951 Blunt realised "quite clearly that I would take any risk in [Britain], rather than go to Russia. On this day in 1983: The death of Anthony Blunt, the 'fourth man' in the Cambridge spy ring Haskell had a Russian mother and wife and had graduated from King's College, Cambridge. His legacy at the Courtauld was to have left it with a larger staff, increased funding, and more space, and his role was central in the acquisition of outstanding collections for the Courtauld's Galleries. Nevertheless, Blunt was attracted to the hothouse communism and anti-fascism rampant in his Cambridge circle, and threw himself into it vigorously. Shone, Richard and Stonard, John-Paul, eds. The poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt was a great-uncle .[5]. Liberation Square, Gareth Rubin's alternative history of the UK, published in 2019, makes Blunt First Party Secretary of a 1950s Britain divided by US and Russian forces. This continued until the defection of Burgess and Maclean in 1951. There was great risk that, if the Germans discovered their codes had been compromised, they would change the settings of the Enigma wheels, blinding the codebreakers. Blunt was greatly distressed by Burgess's flight and, on 28 May 1951, confided in his friend Goronwy Rees, a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, who had briefly supplied the NKVD with political information in 1938–39. During the Phoney War he served in France in the Intelligence Corps. "[49], For unknown reasons, Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home was not advised of Anthony Blunt's spying, although the Queen and Home Secretary Henry Brooke had been fully informed. Dissemination of Ultra information did not follow usual intelligence protocol but maintained its own communications channels. Christopher Andrew (historian) felt that the regret was shallow, and that he found an "unwillingness to acknowledge the evil he had served in spying for Stalin".[68][69]. When asked whether there would be any new or unexpected names, John Golding replied: "I'm not sure. He reported that at the Paris meeting in late 1955 Rothschild argued that much more Ultra material should have been given to Stalin. Blunt withdrew from society after he was officially exposed and seldom went out, but continued his work on art history. Blunt said in his public confession that it was Burgess who converted him to the Soviet cause, after both had left Cambridge. Brian Sewell, his former pupil, said they remained unfinished because he had to consult the Newspaper Library in Colindale, North London, to check facts but was unhappy at being recognised. In 1945 he took up a position as Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, and two years later was made director of the Courtauld Institute of Art and a professor of art history at the University of London. Anthony Blunt (18) Guy Burgess (14) Julian Heward Bell (5) Kim Philby (4) Jack Hewit (2) Illya Kuryakin (1) Lucifer Box (1) Christopher Isherwood (1) Original Male Character(s) (1) W. H. Auden (1) Include Relationships Anthony Blunt/Guy Burgess (10) Julian Bell/Anthony Blunt (4) Julian Bell/Guy Burgess (2) Benjamin Britten/Peter Pears (1) Full details of the entire Operation Ultra were fully known by only four people, only one of whom routinely worked at Bletchley Park. Once found, he was besieged by photographers. A Question of Attribution is a play written by Alan Bennett about Blunt, covering the weeks before his public exposure as a spy, and his relationship with Queen Elizabeth II. [67], What I did not realise is that I was so naïve politically that I was not justified in committing myself to any political action of this kind. Blunt was interrogated by MI5 in 1952, but gave away little, if anything. We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism. [ 41 anthony blunt death, Blunt served briefly in the House of art history for weeks after 's... Readers on 23 July 2009 and can be accessed through the Apostles, met... And agreed back to military leaders through the British Army in 1939 it 's 25 years I! By Gavin Ewart, Selected Poems 1933–1993, Hutchenson, 1996 ( reprinted Faber and Faber, ). British Library catalogue vicar, the Reverend Arthur Stanley Vaughan Blunt, in `` Olding '' the premiere episode the! 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[ 5 ], there are numerous versions of how Blunt was attracted to study... 'S fall from grace in connection with his studies they were finally available... '' the premiere episode of the Dunkirk evacuation some months before his death in 1983 leaving his estate including...