The long and disgraceful life of Britain’s pre-eminent bounder

In his time, Gerald Hamilton (1890–1970) was an almost legendary figure, but he is now remembered — if at all — as the model for the genial conman in Christopher Isherwood’s novel Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935). ‘There are some incidents in my career, as you doubtless know, which are very easily capable of misinterpretation,’ Arthur Norris tells the book’s narrator, and Hamilton affected to be deeply shocked by the assorted vices attributed to his fictional alter ego. He nevertheless exploited the connection throughout his long and disgraceful life.

When Isherwood met him, Hamilton (né Souter) was employed in Berlin by the Times as its German sales representative. He also moonlighted as a fixer for Willi Münzenberg, ‘the notorious communist, who presides in Berlin on behalf of Moscow over the doings of the League Against Imperialism and Friends of Soviet Russia’, as British Intelligence described him. Though it sounds too good to be true, Hamilton was lured into sharing accommodation with ‘the Great Beast’, Aleister Crowley, who took time out from practising the black arts to report back to Special Branch in London on his flatmate’s Comintern activities.