If you waded through the last piece on mutiny, you may be feeling as if you have had enough of that aspect of Naval history.

So, now is you chance to turn away quickly because if you decide to stay, you may end up knowing more about the mutiny at Invergordon than you ever wanted to. 

This all started with a book and a letter and trying to find out who the people were mentioned in the letter.

And, I now have a good idea about all of them except Sir John. ( Little thanks to research I have done, but huge thanks to the Best Beloved’s niece who is researcher extraordinaire in her spare time.)

But again, this is about a mutiny and only in the next instalment do we get to know the people in the letter.

So, if you are still with me, here’s the story of the Invergordon mutiny:

‘On Tuesday September 15th, 1931, at 8.00 a.m. most of the stokers of the forenoon watch in the battleship HMS Valiant, under orders to sail from Invergordon for exercises in the North Sea, refused duty and prevented the ship from sailing. In the battleships Rodney and Nelson and the battle-cruiser Hood, all due to follow Valiant out to sea, the crews also refused to turn to. By 9.31 a.m. the admiral commanding the Atlantic Fleet had cancelled the exercises and recalled to Cromarty Firth those ships already at sea. What was to become known as the Invergordon Mutiny had begun.’ Cambridge University

There has been a lot written about this industrial action by about 1,000 sailors but I will spare you the bramble and nettles and keep to the main path.

1931 was The Great Depression in action and there was a governmental push to cut public spending.

Part of that was to cut some sailors’ pay by up to 25%.

Actually, 10% for senior officers and senior ratings and 25% for the juniors who has joined before 1925.. Plus ca change then.

The men on the ships in Invergordon were due to go out on exercises but whilst they were waiting, they heard – not from the Admiralty but for newspaper reports – about the cuts.

They were not happy, and were indeed less happy when they got confirmation from the Admiralty that the reports were indeed accurate and basically a ‘suck-it-up’ communication.

Rear-Admiral Tomkinson, standing in because his boss was in hospital, was sympathetic towards the mens’ grievances apparently and he tried to get the Admiralty to stop ordering orders and deal with the worsening situation.

He cancelled the exercises and warned that things would likely get worse if there was no movement from the powers that be.

This mutiny was short-lived.

The Admiralty waived the 25% cut and ‘just’ cut all pay by 10% and on September 16th

“In the afternoon, the Admiralty ordered the ships of the Fleet to return to their home ports immediately. Tomkinson directed the ships to proceed in their squadrons as soon as possible, and gave officers and crew with family at Invergordon leave to visit the shore and say their goodbyes. That night, all ships sailed from Invergordon as ordered.’ Wikipedia

Meanwhile, the mutiny had caused a panic in the Stock Exchange and forced it off the Gold Standard.

In the aftermath Tomlinson was blamed by the Admiralty for the mutiny claiming he had failed to quickly deal with insubordination and nip the situation in the bud. 

Always useful to have a scapegoat in these situations.

‘A number of the organisers of the strike were jailed, while 200 sailors were discharged from the service. A further 200-odd sailors were purged from elsewhere in the Navy, accused of attempting to incite similar incidents. The Admiralty held Tomkinson accountable for the mutiny, blaming him for failing to punish dissidents after the first protests.There was much attention given at the time of the mutiny to the apparent involvement of the Communist Party.’ Wikipedia

There were reports that a meeting of the mutineers had ended with the singing of the Red Flag but there was a lot of fake reds-under-the-bed news going on at the time and there is no evidence that the CP was behind this mutiny.

Indeed, 

“…it was only in the weeks and months following Invergordon that Wincott’s alleged leadership began to be promoted as the Communist Party laid claim to the mutiny. The party’s identification with it intensified when two prominent Communists, Shepherd and Allison, were arrested on trumped-up charges of inciting ratings to further mutiny and given stiff prison sentences. Comintern attempts to capitalise on this by means of Communist recruiting drives among sailors in the naval towns of Portsmouth, Chatham and Plymouth were now stepped up, but to no avail. As John Gibbons, the party’s organiser for Portsmouth and the South Coast between 1931 and 1935 subsequently admitted, in that period he never managed to recruit a single matelot (Gibbons to Carew, 16 August 1976).

Len Wincott a notable among the mutineers and claiming to be their leader, spoke at many Communist Party meetings after being dismissed from the Navy.

He was put under surveillance by MI5 and in partly, he said, as a result of that he defected to the Soviet Union in 1934.

He survived the Siege of Leningrad from 1941-1944 but in 1948 he was arrested as a British spy and sent to the Gulag where he spent 11 years ( and met and married his wife.)

After his release he became friends with Donal Maclean and died in 1983.

Interestingly, at his request, his ashes were scattered over Devonport Harbour.

Next time, the letter that started me down the rabbit hole of mutinies. I bet you can hardly wait……