Humphrey Slater

Humphrey Richard "Hugh" Slater[1] (1906–1958) was an English author and painter.

Born in Carlisle, Cumberland in 1906, he spent his early childhood in South Africa, where his father served in Military Intelligence in Pretoria, before returning to England. He attended the Slade School of Art in the mid-1920s,[2] and exhibited an abstract painting at Lucy Wertheim's gallery,[2] a leading London gallery. Painter William Coldstream considered him "a very gifted and rare artist".[2]

Getting involved in anti-Nazi politics in Berlin in the early 1930s, he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain.[2] On the outbreak of Spanish Civil War in 1936 he went to Madrid as a war correspondent, returning the following year to join the International Brigade, where he became Chief of Operations.[3]

Back in England, he helped Tom Wintringham set up the Osterley Park training centre in 1940 which taught guerilla warfare and street fighting for the Home Guard before being drafted into the regular army as a private. The public outcry led to questions being asked in Parliament[4] and an article in the magazine Time.[5] He was also editor of the short-lived magazine Polemic (1945–1947).[6]

The MGM film Conspirator (1949), starring Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Taylor, was based on his novel The Conspirator.[2]