Humphrey Richard "Hugh" Slater (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 The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in the mid-1920s,Buckman, David (13 November 1998)
"Art-Historical Notes: Where are the Hirsts of the 1930s now?"
''The Independent''. and exhibited an abstract painting at

Lucy Wertheim Lucy Carrington Wertheim (''née'' Pearson; 1882, in Whitechapel, London – 1971, in Brighton) was an English gallery owner who founded the Twenties Group of "English artists in their twenties" in 1930 and was Christopher Wood's main patron b ...

's gallery, a leading London gallery. Painter

William Coldstream Sir William Menzies Coldstream, CBE (28 February 1908 – 18 February 1987) was an English realist painter and a long-standing art teacher. Biography Coldstream was born at Belford, Northumberland, in northern England, the second son of coun ...

considered him "a very gifted and rare artist". Getting involved in anti-Nazi politics in Berlin in the early 1930s, he joined the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

. On the outbreak of

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

in 1936 he went to Madrid as a war correspondent, returning the following year to join the

International Brigade The International Brigades ( es, Brigadas Internacionales) were military units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The organization existed f ...

, where he became Chief of Operations. Back in England, he helped

Tom Wintringham Thomas Henry Wintringham (15 May 1898 – 16 August 1949) was a British soldier, military historian, journalist, poet, Marxist, politician and author. He was a supporter of the Home Guard during the Second World War and was one of the founder ...

set up the

Osterley Park Osterley Park and House is a Georgian country estate in west London, that straddles the London boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. Originally dating from the 1570s, the estate contains a number of Grade I and II listed buildings, with the park ...

training centre in 1940 which taught guerilla warfare and street fighting for the

Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting wi ...

before being drafted into the regular army as a private. The public outcry led to questions being asked in Parliament and an article in the magazine ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

''. He was also editor of the short-lived magazine ''

Polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...

'' (1945–1947).Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds.). ''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 2: My Country Right or Left''. London: Penguin. Slater wrote the

historical novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...

''The Heretics'' (1946). ''The Heretics'' had two parts: the first set in France during the

Albigensian Crusade The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown ...

and the second part set in Spain during the

. Slater drew a parallel in ''The Heretics'' between the persecution of the Albigensians in France and that of the

Trotskyists Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...

in 1930s Spain. The MGM film '' Conspirator'' (1949), starring

Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...

and Robert Taylor, was based on his novel ''The Conspirator''.

Publications

* 1941: ''Home Guard for Victory!'' Gollancz"Fascimile"
* 1946: ''The Heretics''Orwell, Sonia 8and Angus, Ian (eds.). ''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 4: In Front of Your Nose (1945-1950)''. London: Penguin. * 1948: ''The Conspirator'' * 1955: ''Who rules Russia?'' Batchworth Press (London) * 1958: ''The Channel Tunnel'' A. Wingate (London) * 2009: ''Los herejes'', Spanish translation of ''The Heretics''; Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de Lectores (Barcelona). Translated by Montserrat Gurguí and Hernán Sabaté. * 2009: ''El conspirador'', Spanish translation of ''The Conspirator''; Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de Lectores (Barcelona). Translated by M. Gurguí and H. Sabaté.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Slater, Humphrey 1906 births 1958 deaths Communist Party of Great Britain members British people of the Spanish Civil War English columnists English communists English male novelists 20th-century English novelists Writers of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages English expatriates in South Africa International Brigades personnel