Thomas Miller Beach (who used the alias Major Henri Le Caron) (September 26, 1841April 1, 1894) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

. For 25 years he lived in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

and other places in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, paying occasional visits to Europe.

Early career

Beach was born in

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. When he was 19, he went to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, where he found employment in business dealing with the United States.

Army life

Inspired by the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

, he emigrated to the

in 1861 and enlisted in the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. It proved essential to th ...

under the name of Henri Le Caron. In 1864, he married a young woman who had helped him to escape from a

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

militia, and by the end of the war he had risen to the rank of Major. In 1865, through a fellow Union soldier, John O'Neill, he was brought into contact with the

Fenian Brotherhood The Fenian Brotherhood () was an Irish republican organisation founded in the United States in 1858 by John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny. It was a precursor to Clan na Gael, a sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). M ...

, and having learnt of the planned Fenian raids against

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, he mentioned them when writing home to his father in England. Beach's father told his local

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

, who in turn told the

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...

, and the latter asked Beach to supply further information.

Irish connections

His services enabled the British Government to take measures which led to the fiasco of the Canadian invasion of 1870 and Kiel's surrender in 1871, and he supplied full details concerning various Irish-American associations, in which he himself was a prominent member. His successful infiltration of the

and

Clan na Gael Clan na Gael ( ga, label=modern Irish orthography, Clann na nGael, ; "family of the Gaels") was an Irish republican organization in the United States in the late 19th and 20th centuries, successor to the Fenian Brotherhood and a sister org ...

aided the defence of

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...

from the Fenian raids and caused both the failure of the

Fenian Dynamite Campaign The Fenian dynamite campaign (or Fenian bombing campaign) was a bombing campaign orchestrated by Irish republicans against the British Empire, between the years 1881 and 1885. The campaign was associated with Fenianism; that is to say the Irish ...

. In an effort to protect his cover, Beach and his handlers were also complicit in blaming the deaths and arrests of Clan na Gael's dynamite bombers on Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin, which resulted in the latter's 1889 murder in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Beach was proficient in medicine, among other skills, and he remained for years on close personal terms with the most extreme men in the Fenian organization. He was in the secrets of the "new departure" in 1879-1881, and in 1881 had an interview with

Charles Stewart Parnell Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1875 to 1891, also acting as Leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882 and then Leader of the ...

at the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

, when the

Irish Parliamentary Party The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nation ...

leader allegedly spoke sympathetically of an armed nationalist revolution in Ireland.

Later years

The Parnell Commission of 1889 ended Beach's spying career. He was subpoenaed by ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', and in the witness-box he told his whole story, with all the efforts of Charles Russell in cross-examination failing to alter his testimony. ''The Times'' lost the case, Beach's career was at an end, and Parnell, who had always insisted that he was opposed to violence, was completely exonerated. Beach published the story of his life, ''Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service'', in 1892 and it had a wide circulation, but he had to be constantly guarded, his acquaintances were hampered from seeing him, and he suffered from

peritonitis Peritonitis is inflammation of the localized or generalized peritoneum, the lining of the inner wall of the abdomen and cover of the abdominal organs. Symptoms may include severe pain, swelling of the abdomen, fever, or weight loss. One part o ...

, from which he died on 1 April 1894. He is buried in London.Find a grave memorial
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References

* *Clark, Joseph. "The Spy who came in from the Coalfield, A British Spy in Illinois", ''Journal of Illinois History'', vol 10, no. 2, Summer, 2007 *Cole, J. A. ''Prince of Spies: Henri Le Caron'', London: Faber & Faber, 1984 *Edwards, Peter. ''Delusion. The True Story of Victorian Superspy Henri Le Caron'', Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2008

External links

*
Biography at ''the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beach, Thomas Miller 1841 births 1894 deaths British intelligence operatives British spies English emigrants to the United States People of the Fenian raids Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood Union Army officers Burials at West Norwood Cemetery Military personnel from Colchester