Forest Gate's arsonists and insurance fraudsters

Forest Gate resident Leopold Harris and his family and associates have played a significant part in shaping how fires are assessed for compensation today following a major trial in 1933. This post is indebted to local resident and fire brigade historian Peter Williams for its inspiration, a major modern insurance-world blog, and a 1930s book for much of its content (see footnote). We are grateful to them for helping to piece together this fascinating tale of intrigue and calumny.

Leopold Harris

The trial of Harris and his gang of fireraisers was one of the newspaper sensations of 1933. A special dock had to be built to accommodate the 17 defendants during the conspiracy case, which was heard at the Old Bailey. It lasted six weeks and was, at the time, the second longest case to have been heard there. Its historical significance cannot be overstated, as it reshaped the insurance industry’s investigation of fires, leading to the creation of the profession of Loss Adjustors.

Harris' childhood family home 531 Romford Road

Harris, the central figure in the story, was born into a middle-class family in Forest Gate, and they lived at 531 Romford Road, E7 (1911 census). His father had founded Harris and Co. as a fire insurance assessor in 1865, and Leopold joined it as a young man, taking over aged 31 in 1925. Assessors attend the site after a major fire and calculate the financial losses that might result from the fire.

Until the early 1930s, fire claims investigations lacked consistency, with competing insurance companies not sharing valuable evidence and data. Harris and his gang took full advantage of this loophole and devised a simple scam.

He established a network of corrupt contacts in Fire Brigades and the Salvage Corps (insurance-funded bodies that worked with the fire service to salvage as much as possible from fires to minimise the size of settlements), nationwide. 

Captain Brynmer Miles MC - a corrupt co-conspirator

Among those Harris bribed in the industry was Captain Brynmer Miles, the London Salvage Corps Chief Officer. Before then, Miles had a distinguished military career (decorated with the MC) and had held senior positions within the London Fire Brigade. Following the stock exchange crash of 1929, he got into financial difficulties, and Harris was there to help him, with bribes. Miles knew of Harris’ crimes and actively worked to cover them up, so that no suspicions were raised or prosecutions took place.

The scams

Harris invested money in a series of businesses—not in his own name—and saw that they were insured for much more than they were worth. Most of the companies he established were supposed to be engaged in wholesale trades such as textiles and stationery, dealing in highly inflammable products. Having overseen the establishment of the firms, he would pay generous sums to the front people who set them up and proceeded with the rest of the scam.

He and others in his gang planned fires on these premises and made themselves available locally when the fires were due. He used his spies (like Miles) in the fire and salvage organisations to tip him off as soon as they became aware of a fire. In some cases, Harris’ people arrived on the fire scene before the fire bodies (!), which put them in a prime position to secure the right to represent the policyholder (complicit in the fraud) in claiming damages.

Camillo Capsoni, conspirator who turned King's evidence

Another arm of his sophisticated team of crooks involved Camillo Vittorio Luigi Capsoni, an Italian with a struggling high-quality silk business. He and Harris’ brother-in-law, Harry Gould, who ran a commercial salvage business near Liverpool Street, would ensure that the premises identified for the fires were filled with cheap, usually inflammable products. 

Capsoni's Italian Silk Company, in a staged photo to show his credibility

One of their first frauds was at Capsoni’s Franco-Italian Silk Company in Oxford Street in 1929. They filled it with cheap products worth less than £3,000 and insured it for ten times the amount. They devised a way of setting fire via a lighted candle trail, which left little trace when the cause of the fire was investigated, allowing the rest of the scam to follow undetected.

The scene at Metro-radio, Manchester after a Harris arson attack

Once the fire destroyed the stock they planted on the premises, they produced false invoices to suggest the burned goods were very high-end products, thus bumping up the scale of the claim. The various arms of the corrupt Harris organisation would share the spoils of the fraud.

Sidney Balcombe (Harris' brother in law, and company secretary) lived at 110 Capel Road, but claimed no knowledge of the scams

Another brother-in-law and witness at the Harris trial was Sidney Balcombe, who lived at 110 Capel Road in Forest Gate in a house owned by Leopold Harris in the 1930s. He was married to Harris’ sister. Though Balcombe was company secretary, he said he knew nothing of the frauds. Their family relationship was to have long-term consequences—see below.

The "talkative" Harry Priest in his fireman's uniform

One of Harris’s co-conspirators, Harry Priest, became too talkative about the frauds and was overheard discussing them in a pub. The conversation came to the attention of William Charles Crocker (later Sir William), a solicitor who specialised in fraud cases.

Sir William Charles Crocker, the anti-Semitic lawyer who tracked down the case and later became Deputy Director of MI5 and President of the Law Society

Capsoni fell out with Harris and helped Crocker put his case together by offering “King’s evidence”. In his biography, Crocker recalled, "I spent half of 1931 and the whole of 1932 deep in such a plot as Edgar Wallace might have used, had he not found the truth of it too tall for fiction.”

There is a further unpleasant twist to this drama. Crocker’s anti-Semitism, which was common among the English middle and upper classes at the time, may have fueled his determination to bring the Harris gang to justice. Harris and most of the key members of his gang were Jewish. Crocker was later involved in several dubious pro-German and anti-Semite groups in the late 1930s, which did not stop him from briefly rising to the position of Deputy Director General of MI5 in 1940 and President of the Law Society.

The trial

Crocker’s painstaking investigations laid the basis for a raid by 40 police on 17 different premises, which uncovered enough evidence to prosecute the trial the Harris gang faced in July/August 1933.

In passing sentence at the end of the lengthy trial, Mr Justice Humphries had the following to say about those who have featured above:

Leopold Harris: “You were the head and front of this conspiracy … You are responsible for the presence in this dock of your fellow co-defendants, and you have pleaded guilty to no less than ten separate cases of arson. The sentence of this court is that you are kept in penal servitude for fourteen years”.

Capt Brynmer Miles: “I feel I should be doing less than my duty if I did otherwise than to send you to penal servitude for four years.”

Camillo Capsoni: Pleaded guilty to 25 charges of arson and fraud and turned King’s evidence. The judge called him “the most destestable type of criminal” whom he regretted he would “be unable to pass sentence, of which he deeply regrets.”

Harry Gould: “Your case has given me much trouble. You were in the conspiracy from start to finish … I had it in mind to pass a sentence of ten years penal servitude.  But the prosecution ….(said that you had been co-operative) ..The sentence therefore, upon you, will be penal servitude for six years.”

Harry Gould - another brother-in-law of Harris' - sentenced to three years for his part in the crimes

Harry Priest: “Your learned counsel described you as a boastful fool. … Your part in the conspiracy was a very substantial one … I sentence you to a term of three years penal servitude.”

The gang was careful to ensure that their arson attacks did not kill or harm people. Had they not done so, the above sentences would have been much more severe and could have included capital punishment.

The Harris gang’s spree of insurance frauds lasted 3-4 years and generated more than £1.5 million in fraudulent claim payments (in excess of £110 million at today’s rates). Harris and co took over 30% of the money as their cut in the scam. Little of the money was recovered.

Aftermath

The diligence by which the scams were conducted led to a serious review of their operations by fire insurance companies and the establishment of the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters.

Australian newspaper, The Truth, covers the outcome of the case

As seen from the cutting above from an Australian newspaper, the case gained widespread international attention. It led to the publication of a book, The Fire Raisers, by Harold Dearden, by significant publishers William Heinemann. The following year a feature film of the same name, directed by Michael Powell, was released. It is still available on YouTube (Fire Raisers film).

Fire Raisers - the book

 

 

 

Fire Raisers - the film

Most of the convicted arsonists/fraudsters served only half of their sentences. Harris was the last to leave prison in August 1940, having served just seven years (mainly in Maidstone jail). He returned to the insurance assessor's business on release.

Leopold Harris, with his wife, on his release from prison in 1940

 

In January 1972, Barking MP Tom Driberg urged Scotland Yard to investigate the activities of the then 78-year-old Leopold Harris following a spate of fires in London. Using parliamentary privilege, he claimed that Harris and co were “up to their old tricks of submitting fraudulent claims.”

The litigious Harris strongly denied the claims and challenged Driberg to make them outside of parliament so that they could be actionable under defamation laws. We have been unable to find any follow-up on this exchange. Leopold Harris died in 1983, leaving almost £200,000 in his will.

In yet another twist to this strange tale, Ellis and Buckle, another firm of loss adjustors, decided to republish the 1934 book The Fire Raisers "by arrangement with the copyright holder" (William Heinemann) in 1986, presumably in a bid to discredit their main loss adjusting rival company at the time. 

This was much to the consternation of Harris’ family, who were still running the family business. Amid heavy threats of litigation, the republication ceased after around 1,500 copies had been released.

The Harris family continued to trade as the Harris Claims Group until it merged with its main rivals, Balcombe and Co. (see the Harris-Balcombe family relationship above), in 2008 to form Harris Balcombe. That company currently has three Balcombes and one Harris on its main board.

There is absolutely no claim or suggestion that this company is improper in its business dealings. We are happy to accept their statement that they are: “the oldest and most prestigious claims recovery specialist in the UK.”

Footnote. As mentioned at the top of this post, we are grateful to Harold Dearden’s book The Fire Raisers for much of this article's content and for using most of the photographs. We are also very thankful to David Worsfold of the insurance industry blog The Insurance Post (here) - edition May 2020 - for some of the more recent and contextual information in this article.

Manor Park Cemetery celebrates 150 years

 

Sebert Road entrance to the cemetery

150 years ago, in the summer of 1874, advertisements began to appear in London papers offering £1-00 shares in the Manor Park Cemetery Company. The company's aim, said the prospectus, was to open a new cemetery to cater to the “ever-increasing population” of London’s eastern and northern suburbs. The company had bought 115 acres of land east of Forest Gate station, of which 45 acres would be for the cemetery, and the rest sold off in building plots to part-finance the operation.

The cemetery and crematorium stand on a section of what was previously Hamfrith Farm, which can be traced back to the 1700s. In 1851, the farm was bought by Samuel Gurney, who, as we have shown in a previous post (see here), was busily acquiring land in Forest Gate at the time. This later laid the foundations for the establishment of the area as a Victorian suburb.

He paid £17,710 for the fam. Following Samuel’s death, in 1872, his grandson, John, sold the farm to the British Land Company, who, in turn, sold the site of the cemetery to the newly established Manor Park Cemetery company in 1874.

The cemetery, it was claimed, would offer many advantages. It was close to London (rather improbably, the company claimed their cemetery was two miles closer to the city than the City of London cemetery) and had good rail links. It was built on “stiff, dry gravel” ideal for multiple burials in common graves, and the opening hours meant that undertakers could reckon on fitting in 4-5 funerals a day.

The company aimed to appeal to respectable working-class east Londoners by offering family plots at one guinea (£1 5p). These “Guinea Graves” could also be exchanged for shares, enabling “the working and industrious classes” to have an affordable family plot rather than the indignity of being buried in a common grave. In 2006, the cemetery company was to devise an ingenious variation on this scheme, offering 1,000 used plots as “traditional style graves” complete with the original headstones (names scoured off) at £4,000 for a 50-year lease.

Not all local residents were happy about such arrangements, which would they felt drew the wrong sort of people to the proposed cemetery. One wrote to a local paper to claim that “It would attract a class of funerals here, the mourners belonging to which are so apt to solace themselves at the public-house, and wind up with a friendly ‘set to’.”

Grave of William Nesbitt, the first burial in the cemetery

Originally the cemetery company wanted to use all the land from Forest Gate station to Manor Park station for graves but the Local Board (the equivalent of the council) said "no" and the cemetery eventually occupied about half of this area. The rest was sold off for housing development. The company also wanted to make use of the adjacent railway to transport coffins (rather like the famous Necropolis Railway of south west London) but nothing came of this.

Another interesting fact is that the same family the Jeffreys have been involved since 1874 and still are part of the company. This is a private profit making business, unlike council owned cemeteries such as the one in Cemetery Road Forest Gate, owned and run by Newham.

Construction of the cemetery started over the winter of 1874-5 on a site at the eastern end of what became Sebert Road. In the first couple of years, the cemetery was simply a burial ground, with no facilities for funeral services until the chapel and entrance gates followed in 1877. By then, the first burials had taken place. The cemetery opened in March 1875, the first interment being a 19-year-old local resident, William Nesbitt.

Advert for the new cemetery on the day it opened 25 March 1875

The table of charges published when the cemetery opened gives a revealing glimpse into the Victorian way of death. There were five categories of payments for children who died under the age of 10, which in the local area accounted for much of the mortality rate.

From the beginning, funerals could be large affairs. It wasn’t unusual for hundreds to attend burials, with brass bands (sometimes more than one) playing suitably solemn music. In 1882, 50 cyclists from local clubs joined the funeral procession of a young rider who had, so it was reported, died of “over-training”. 

 

Auction plan of the area between Capel Road and Sebert Road divided into plots for sale in 1876. Areas in pink were already sold, those in blue were up for auction.

The cemetery company also significantly impacted the growth of a large part of Forest Gate north of the railway. Its sale of the surplus land as building plots led to the creation of the streets between Sebert and Capel Road in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The action plan shows the large estate of West Ham Hall, the area now covered by Godwin School, Woodgrange School, and the viaduct of the Gospel Oak-Barking Riverside line.

Manor Park does not have many notable graves, but probably the best known is that of Jack Cornwell, who received a posthumous VC for his actions at the Battle of Jutland, the great naval engagement between the Royal Navy and the German fleet in the North Sea in 1916. Born in Leyton, before the family moved to Manor Park, Jack was just 16 when he was killed in action aboard HMS Chester. (see here for film of the funeral procession and here for further details about Jack). There is a community centre named after him, which has just been refurbed, in Manor Park.

Funeral procession of Jack Cornwell in August 1916

A more recently constructed memorial is for the victims of the disaster at Bethnal Green underground station in March 1943. The firing of anti-aircraft batteries in nearby Victoria Park may have caused the panic on a staircase into the station, which resulted in 173 deaths, mainly women and children, probably the largest single loss of civilian life in the UK during the Second World War. 

The memorial to the victims of the Bethnal Green tube disaster buried in Manor Park Cemetery

The memorial to those buried in Manor Park has brought together individual gravestones under the shade of a tree. This attractive memorial is a few metres from the eastern gate of the cemetery in Whitta Road.

A map produced by the cemetery company shows these graves and others. To celebrate its 150th year, the company has put up two interpretation boards, together with accompanying leaflets, which give potted histories of some of the notable burials and a map showing their location. You can find fuller details of this on the cemetery's recently upgraded website: here

 

The boards can be found inside the main gates. Leaflets are in holders or available from the cemetery office

Markers points on the self-guided tour of the cemetery

    

1. John Travers Cornwell, (see above).

2. John Clinton, d 16 July 1894, aged 10, drowned, saving the life of another child.

3. Mary Orchard, d 1906, aged 76. Nanny to children of Queen Victoria (see here for further details).

4. William Chandler, d 1946, aged 66, founder of eponymous bookmakers, now called BetVictor. Also the creator of the former Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium.

5. William Tom Ecclestone, d 1915, aged 53, weighed 46 stone and was known as “the king’s second heaviest subject.”

6. Joyce and Ronald McQueen, parents of fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

7. Chapel buildings, constructed in 1877.

8. Susan Hibberd Flower Court. Area for leaving floral tributes after ceremonies.

9. Pavilion, built in 1968 for memorial plaques.

10. War memorial, (see here for further details).

11. William Nesbitt, first internment in the cemetery (see above).

12. Military war graves, Maintained by Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

13. Alexander Lambert, d 1892 aged 55. A pioneering professional industrial diver.

14. Bethnal Green Tube Disaster, (see above).

15. Sarah Dearman, (nee Chapman). Matchgirls’ Strike leader (see here and here for further details).

16. Annie Chapman, d 8 September 1888. Jack the Ripper’s second victim (see here for further details).

17. Civilian War Memorial. Elongated tomb containing remains of 57 victims of WW2 bombings.

18. Columbarium,  location for cremation ashes.

19. Steve Marsh. d April 2010, aged 51. “BMW Steve”, a car fanatic.

20. Francis Albermar McDougal, d 1907 a UK veteran of the US Civil War, among six other similar survivors in the cemetery.