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3 unusual facts about Maurice Gwyer


Maurice Gwyer

In 1912 Warren Fisher, after an intensive search for the right man, invited Gwyer to join the legal staff of the National Health Insurance Commission and (although tempted to return to the bar after the war) he remained in the public service for the rest of his working life.

Allegations had been made in the course of litigation suggesting that senior Foreign Office officials had taken advantage of their knowledge to speculate in foreign currencies; and these broadened to suggest that one senior official had manipulated the publication of the so-called Zinoviev letter so as to ensure the defeat of the Labour government in the general election of 1924 and thereby facilitate a spectacularly profitable foreign currency coup.

In fact on Sir Henry Burdett's death in 1920 she inherited the firm that published the Nursing Mirror, and, in conjunction with his All Souls colleague Sir Geoffrey Cust Faber, the Gwyers set up the company that eventually became Faber and Faber.



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