Ralph Follett Wigram CMG ( /ˈreɪf ˈwɪɡrəm/; 23 October 1890 – 31 December 1936) was a British government official in the Foreign Office. He helped raise the alarm about German re-armament under Hitler during the period prior to World War II. In part, he did this by providing intelligence information about German re-armament to Winston Churchill, at a point in time when Churchill did not hold any position in the government of Stanley Baldwin; Churchill used the information to publicly attack the policies of Baldwin.
Churchill's magisterial six-volume history of World War II, The Second World War, described him as a "great unsung hero." The autobiography of Valentine Lawford, who worked under Wigram in the Central Department, describes him variously as "the authentic local deity" and "the departmental volcano." Wigram's role was brought to public attention by the biographical movie about Churchill, The Gathering Storm (where he was played by Linus Roache) and also in the Masterpiece Theatre miniseries "Winston Churchill The Wilderness Years."
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Wigram was the son of Eustace Rochester Wigram and Mary Grace Bradford-Atkinson, and had a younger sister, Isabel.[1] Wigram was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford, and joined the Foreign Office after graduation. He served in a number of posts over the following years:
He was awarded a CMG in 1933.
He married Ava Bodley (1896–1974) (daughter of the historian J. E. C. Bodley) on 28 February, 1925; they had one child, Charles Edward Thomas Bodley Wigram (27 Nov 1929 – 14 Aug 1951)[2] (who apparently suffered from some sort of birth defect, but sources disagree whether it was Down's Syndrome or cerebral palsy). Ava's letters to Churchill indicate that she supported Wigram's attempts to warn Churchill.
His sudden death is somewhat mysterious. Again, sources disagree, on several points. For one, some say he was found dead at home, but a letter from Churchill says he died in Ava's arms. His death certificate recorded the cause of death as pulmonary haemorrhage, but a letter from Henry Pelling indicates he committed suicide while deeply depressed; the fact that his own parents did not attend his funeral is cited as support for this theory (although Churchill and his family did attend, along with a number of others such as Robert Vansittart and Brendan Bracken). Churchill's letters indicate (but only indirectly) that depression and suicide were the cause. Polio has also been put forward as an indirect cause by some sources. He was buried in the churchyard at Cuckfield, Sussex.[3]
After Wigram's death, Ava stayed in close contact with Churchill, writing to him about her travels to Germany before the outbreak of war. She married John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley in 1941.
Wigram's superior in the Foreign Office, Permanent Under-Secretary Robert Vansittart had been quite alarmed about the German situation for several years, and when Wigram came on board they soon came to share deep concern about the situation. (Churchill's biographer William Manchester described one of Wigram's memos from this period as having "a sagacity and vision seldom matched in Britain's archives".) In the beginning, they tried to raise the alarm with their political masters in the government, to no avail; in desperation, they then turned to other means.
Wigram did make at least one attempt at direct publicity – at the time of the Occupation of the Rhineland in early 1936, he arranged a press conference for French Minister of Foreign Affairs Flandin, but it had little effect. His efforts in another direction were far more successful.
Wigram had begun passing information to Churchill in late 1934, apparently with the knowledge and support of Vansittart. The original path was via Major Desmond Morton, but from early 1935 Wigram began to interact directly with Churchill. From then on Wigram and Churchill were in close contact; starting on 7 April, 1935, the Wigrams often spent weekends with Churchill at Chartwell, his country house and Churchill also visited their London home. The information seems to have been primarily about the German air force, although more general material about German rearmament, and Hitler's character and likely aims, was included as well.
Wigram was one of many people passing information to Churchill; Churchill's biographer, Martin Gilbert, estimated that there were more than twenty (although he credited Wigram as one of the three main players in this). The film Gathering Storm, however, focuses on Wigram; the film's director, Richard Loncraine, said that "in reality there were four 'Wigrams' – two Army officers and two civil servants. It would be cinematographically inept to have four people doing the same thing. What we did was leave out the other three characters."[4]
Wigram and Churchill did disagree over the Anglo-German Naval Agreement; Wigram supported it as a means to escape the strictures of disarmament, whereas Churchill felt it condoned German treaty-breaking.
There is some confusion as to the legality of Wigram's passing of documents to Churchill. Although it seems to have been carried out in a manner that implied it was illegal, Churchill was at the time a Privy Counsellor (appointed in 1907 under King Edward VII, see the list of Privy Counsellors), and as such would have legally been allowed access to the papers.
Baldwin's government certainly did not like the passing of information to Churchill; Walter Runciman, the President of the Board of Trade, was sent to see Ava when Wigram was not at home, to try to convince her to stop her husband from passing information to Churchill.