British Traitors: Betrayal and Treachery in the Twentieth Century

by Gordon Kerr

Capital punishment was abolished for murder in Great Britain in 1969, but remained as the punishment for high treason until as recently as 1998, demonstrating how seriously we take the crime of betraying your country. But even with the threat of the noose hanging over them, many still chose the path of treachery during the cataclysmic events of last century.

British Traitors examines the lives and motivations of a number of the perpetrators of this most heinous of crimes, following the footsteps of Fascist traitors such as William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) and John Amery to the gallows, investigating what drove men such as Wilfred Macartney and John Herbert King to betray their country during the war to end all wars and delving into the mysterious web of espionage and subterfuge surrounding the Cambridge Spy Ring that spied for the Soviet Union from the nineteen-thirties until the early nineteen-fifties.

People commit treason for many reasons - some seek adventure, some seek reward, some are motivated by political philosophy, while others are sucked into it by their own foolishness. British Traitors provides a fascinating look at the lives and impulses of those who chose to betray their country.

298 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 1, 2022

About the author

Gordon Kerr was born in the Scottish new town of East Kilbride and worked in the wine trade and then bookselling and publishing before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of numerous books in a variety of genres, including art, history, true crime, travel and humour. He has a wife and two children and lives in Hampshire and—when he can—South West France.

Reviews

[Jaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

you’d think a book about spies in the Cold War would be pretty interesting right? WRONG

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very short comment as, honestly, I don’t I have the investment for a review. I picked this up as was advertised by the National Archives which have done some really good work on treason especially.
In a short book Kerr covers a range of “British” Traitors (although William Joyce, inevitably, receives a chapter), a few from the first world war but most based on informants to the Soviets. I cannot speak for the latter period but I found the later persons but the coverage of the WWII personalities, with which I have more knowledge was replete with numerous really basic (and uncontroversial) mistakes of fact which I find strange.

And, even without these, it is a book with precious little detail on the trials and offences (most were official secrets charges, it appears) for which the subjects convicted. I am not sure a reader would not gain as much from reading a few Wikipedia articles.

[Daniel Farabaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable book which fully described and developed the people at the core of it. The vinettes do not come together into a larger whole at times but they were interesting in themselves.