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German born Sir Edgar Speyer was a naturalised British citizen for more than 20 years. He was a successful businessman and philanthropist having financed the project to build the London Underground, and rescuing the Proms from collapse.

In the early summer of 1914 Speyer and his wife Leonora stood at the peak of their success and celebrity status in London society. They kept a home called Sea Marge in fashionable Overstrand in North Norfolk.

At the outbreak of war, they became objects of suspicion within weeks. After harassment at both their Norfolk and London homes the Speyer family took refuge in America. Under the Aliens Act of 1918, Speyer was summoned in 1921 before a judicial enquiry which found him guilty of disloyalty and disaffection, and of communicating and trading with the enemy. He was stripped of his citizenship and membership of the Privy Council.

Pilloried by The Times as a traitor, Speyer vehemently denied the charges, but he never returned to England, and never forgot his ordeal.

Here his biographer Professor Anthony Lentin recounts the downfall of Sir Edgar Speyer.

Location: Overstrand, Norfolk NR27 0AB
Image: Sea Marge Hotel, courtesy of Holly Edwards
Presented by Professor Anthony Lentin

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