Leonard Plugge: Difference between revisions

{{short description|British politician (1889–1981)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=AprilFebruary 20122021}}

{{Infobox personofficeholder

| prehonorific-nominals prefix = Captain

| spouseparty = {{marriage|[[AnnConservative PluggeParty (née MucklestonUK)|Conservative]] |1935}}

Captain '''Leonard Frank Plugge''' (21 September 1889 – 19 February 1981) was a British radio entrepreneur and [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] politician.

Plugge was born in [[Walworth]], only son of Frank Plugge (1864–1946), a commercial clerk, and his wife, Mary Chase (1862–1924). His father was a Belgian of Dutch descent.<ref name=dnb>Petheram, Michel, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/65431 "Plugge, Leonard Frank (1889–1981)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, October 2008. Retrieved 15 August 2017 {{subscription required}}</ref> Plugge was educated at [[Dulwich College]], the [[Free University of Brussels (1834–1969)|University of Brussels]] and [[University College London]], where he graduated with a BSc degree in civil engineering in 1915.<ref>{{Who's Who | surnametitle = PLUGGE | othernames =, Capt. Leonard Frank | id = U168148 | type = was | volume = 2018 | edition = online}}</ref> In the First World War, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and in 1918 transferred to the Royal Air Force, where he became a captain. He stayed with the air force until 1921, and in the same year was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society]].<ref name=dnb>Petheram, Michel, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/65431 "Plugge, Leonard Frank (1889–1981)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, October 2008. Retrieved 15 August 2017 {{subscription}}</ref>

Plugge was elected [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) for [[Chatham (UK Parliament constituency)|Chatham]] in 1935, defeating the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] candidate [[Hugh Gaitskell]] by a majority of 5,897 votes. He lost in 1945 to [[Arthur Bottomley]], a future Minister of Overseas Development in [[Harold Wilson]]'s first government.

Plugge created the [['''International Broadcasting Company]]''' in 1931 as a commercial rival to the [[BBC|British Broadcasting Corporation]] by buying airtime from radio stations such as those of [[Radio Normandie|Normandy]], Toulouse, Ljubljana, Juan les Pins, Paris, Poste Parisien, Athlone, Barcelona, Madrid and Rome. IBC worked indirectly with [[Radio Luxembourg (English)|Radio Luxembourg]] until 1936. [[World War II]] silenced most of Plugge's stations between 1939 and 1945.

Plugge went to see Fernand Le Grand and offered to buy time to broadcast programmes in English. Le Grand agreed, and a studio was set up in the loft over the old stables in rue George Cuvier, from which the programmes were broadcast by Plugge's employees. The first presenter was a cashier from the [[National Provincial Bank]]'s [[Le Havre]] branch named [[William Evelyn Kingwell]], whom Plugge had met when drawing cash after leaving Le Grand. Bank teller turned broadcaster [[William Evelyn Kingwell]] agreed to motorcycle over on Sundays to introduce records.

Kingwell fell ill and Plugge brought in new announcers, including [[Maxwell Staniforth|Max Staniforth]] and Stephen Williams, and later [[Bob Danvers-Walker]] and general manager-cum-presenter David Davies, who, after the war, became station manager and managing director of the English-language 'offshore' broadcaster, LM Radio (Radio Lourenco Marques), [[Mozambique]], from 1947 to 1969.<ref>[http://www.lmradio.org/People01.htm LMRadio.org].Accessed on 17 August 2007.</ref> Many others joined during the life of Radio Normandy (the station used this anglicised spelling in its British literature and advertising).

The power of the transmitter increased after Plugge convinced film studio and 280-strong cinema chain owner [[Gaumont British]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gaumont-british.co.uk/|title=gaumont british|website=gaumont british|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080614213117/http://www.gaumont-british.co.uk/|archive-date=14 June 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/448165/index.html|title=screenonline: Gaumont-British Picture Corporation Biography|website=British Film Institute|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080209235043/http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/448165/index.html|archive-date=9 February 2008|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> owner of the ''Sunday Referee'', an entertainment-based Sunday newspaper to sponsor him and print Radio Normandy's schedule.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20071112043222/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/734658 ''Sunday Referee Newspaper Advertisement'',1939, British Film Institute].Accessed onAccessed 17 August 2007.</ref> A new studio was established in a house in the town.

Plugge broadcast from Fécamp and later from a new transmitter and studio at [[Caudebec-en-Caux]], France. [[World War II]] began soon after the studio opened and, according to some histories, German troops overran the transmitters in 1940, using them to broadcast propaganda to Britain until the [[Royal Air Force|RAF]] bombed the Louvetot transmitter out of action. The French website ''L'Histoire de Radio Normandie'' remembers it differently: "After the Louvetot transmitter closed in 1939 because of the war, IBC went on broadcasting under the name ''Radio International Fécamp'' from ''Radio Normandie'''s first transmitter at Fécamp for "several weeks". On 10 June 1940 French troops sabotaged the transmitter on the eve of the German invasion.'<ref>[http://radionormandie.free.fr/david_newman.htm Announcer David Newman's letters]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Accessed on 17 August 2007.</ref>

:It was learnt that an obsolete station at Fécamp, controlled by the International Broadcasting Company (of which Captain L. F. Plugge, MP, is the chairman), has been modernised, and had started to work with programmes in English, Czech and Austrian [sic]. The danger of allowing a station so near the Channel to work on its own...was felt by the Air Ministry to be grave...The French Service(s)...are in complete agreement with the British point of view...[and] have confessed that the private interests concerned have got the ear of the civil powers [in France] without reference to factors of national security. It is hoped that the French Service view will shortly prevail.<ref>[http://www.psywar.org/psywar/reproductions/WarCabinetMemos.pdf ''Publicity In Enemy Countries''].Accessed onAccessed 17 August 2007.</ref>

It appears the British government was not interested in Plugge's invitation to broadcast Allied propaganda from Radio NormandieNormandy transmitters, even if they had not been destroyed.

The IBC's original London offices were in Hallam Street, near the BBC's Broadcasting House, then moved to nearby 35–36 Portland Place. This was taken over by a British weapons development unit [[MD1|MRI(c)]] at the start of the war but later bombed. The BBC's [[BBC Radio 1|Radio 1]], inheritor of the audiences that Plugge's offshore successors had built until the 1967 [[Marine Broadcasting Offences Act|Marine Broadcasting (Offences) Act]] made them illegal, later moved into the Hallam Street building. After the war IBC became a recording studio and stars including [[The Who]], [[The Kinks]], [[The Rolling Stones]] and [[Jimi Hendrix]] recorded there.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ibcstudio.co.uk/ |title=IBC Studio/Homegrown Music, undated |access-date=12 January 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060617021304/http://www.ibcstudio.co.uk/ |archive-date=17 June 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

It has been suggested that Leonard Plugge was the inventor of the two-way [[car]] [[radiotelephone]].<ref>[http://www.ibcstudio.co.uk/earlydaysindex.html ''The Early Days of Radio Normandy'', Brian Carroll, ''IBC Studio/Homegrown Music'', undated] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061208090812/http://www.ibcstudio.co.uk/earlydaysindex.html |date=8 December 2006 }}.Accessed on 17 August 2007.</ref> It is also claimed that the term of "plugging" something by advertising was derived from the name of Leonard Plugge. Plugge pronounced his name "Plooje", claiming Flemish origins. It was only when he stood for the parliamentary seat of Chatham that he agreed to the slogan "Plugge in for Chatham" and accepted the way everybody else pronounced his name.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Plugge moved in a social set that included [[Princess Margaret]], her husband photographer [[Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon|Anthony Armstrong-Jones]], broadcaster [[Julian Pettifer]] and English model [[April Ashley]].<ref>[http://www.antijen.org/Aprilv1/ ''April Ashley's Odyssey'' – Duncan Fallowell, April Ashley, Cape, 1982].Accessed 17 August 2007.</ref>

The film ''[[Performance (film)|Performance]]'', starring [[Mick Jagger]] and [[James Fox (actor)|James Fox]], was filmed in Plugge's house in [[Lowndes Square]]. Plugge moved to [[Hollywood, California|Hollywood]], California in 1972, and died there on 19 February 1981 at the age of 91.<ref name="dnb" />

Captain Plugge was the only son of Frank Plugge (1864–1946), a commercial clerk, and his wife, Mary Chase (1862–1924). His father was a Belgian of Dutch descent. He married (Gertrude) Ann Muckleston (13 January 1909 – 1993) in New York on 28 October 1935, a little over two weeks before he was elected to the House of Commons. They had three children: Leonard Frank (b. 13 January 1937), Greville (4 November 1944 – 1973) and [[Gale Benson|Gale Ann]] (4 November 1944 – 2 January 1972). Plugge and his wife separated in the early 1950s.<ref name="dnb" />

His daughter Gale Ann, who had married and divorced Jonathan Benson, was in [[Trinidad]] with her partner, the American [[Black Power]] leader [[Hakim Jamal]], when she was hacked to death with machetesstabbed and buried alive in January 1972 by Stanley Abbott and Edward Chadee, allegedly on the orders of [[Michael X]] and his supporters, whom Jamal also followed.<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/7366 ''Without Regret or Hope'' (book review), New York Review of Books, 12 June 1980]. Accessed on 17 August 2007.</ref><ref>[http://www.historytalk.org/Tom%20Vague%20Pop%20History/Chp%205.pdf ''Underground, Overground'' History Talk oral history project, undated] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070707132028/http://www.historytalk.org/Tom%20Vague%20Pop%20History/Chp%205.pdf|date=7 July 2007}}. Accessed on 17 August 2007.</ref><ref Hername=TheAge>{{cite twinweb brother|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YBEQAAAAIBAJ&pg=4566,3875225&dq=hakim+jamal+murder&hl=en Greville,|title=Two diedWill inHang afor roadBurial accidentMurder in|date=July 18, 1973 |work=[[MoroccoThe Age]] a|access-date=July year22, 2011 }}</ref> later.

[[Rupert Vansittart ]] played Plugge in the 2008 film ''[[The Bank Job]]''.

=== Bibliography ===

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070930094149/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787951,00.html Time, ''Pioneers'', Monday, 21 January 1935]

| title = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Chatham (UK Parliament constituency)|Chatham]]

| before = [[Park Goff|Sir Park Goff]]