Charles Fraser-Smith

Charles Fraser-Smith (26 January 1904 – 9 November 1992) was an author and one-time missionary who is widely credited as being the inspiration for Ian Fleming's James Bond quartermaster Q. During World War II, Fraser-Smith worked for the Ministry of Supply, fabricating equipment nicknamed "Q-devices" (after Q-ships) for SOE agents operating in occupied Europe. Prior to the war, Fraser-Smith had worked as a missionary in North Africa. After the war he purchased a dairy farm in Bratton Fleming, Devon, where he died in 1992.

Charles Fraser-Smith was the son of a solicitor who owned a wholesale grocery business; he was orphaned at age seven. He was then brought up by a Christian missionary family in Croxley Green in Hertfordshire. He went to school at Brighton College, where he was described as "scholastically useless except for woodwork and science and making things."

On leaving school he veered from one occupation after another, working as a prep school teacher in Portsmouth, a motorcycle messenger rider, and an aircraft factory worker. Eventually, inspired by his foster family, he went to Morocco as a Christian missionary. Returning to England in 1939, he gave a Sunday sermon at the Open Brethren Evangelical Church in Leeds. In the sermon, Fraser-Smith described his practice of bricolage, and the necessity of procuring supplies from just about any source. In the congregation were two officials of Britain's Ministry of Supply, who were impressed by his adventures. As a result, the Director of the Ministry of Supply offered him what he later described as "a funny job in London".

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