Bob Stewart (spy)

Robert J. Stewart (16 February 1877 – 1971), known as Bob Stewart, was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and was in charge of the underground cell which, in the 1930s, operated a clandestine transmitter in Wimbledon that relayed information between the CPGB and the Comintern in Moscow. He was the CPGB's spymaster and, at one stage, controlled the Cambridge Five.

Stewart was born in Eassie, Angus, in Scotland, but grew up in Dundee. Stewart trained as a ship's carpenter from the age of twelve. He joined the Amalgamated Association of Carpenter and Joiners and was soon elected to the local management committee.

In the early 20th century Stewart moved to South Africa, but returned to Dundee to become the full-time organiser of the Scottish Prohibition Party. In 1908, he was elected to the town council, but he soon led a Marxist and anti-religious split, the Prohibition and Reform Party. In 1911, he became the full-time organiser of this organisation.

During the 1910s, Stewart worked as an organiser for the Scottish Horse and Motormen's Union and then the No Conscription Fellowship. He was imprisoned for opposition to World War I, then served in the British Army from 1917 to 1919. In these two years, he was court-martialed four times.

Stewart's party restarted activity in after he was released, and it was renamed the Socialist Prohibition Party. He began working with the Communist Unity Group and was a founder member of the CPGB, serving on its first Executive Committee. He stood for the party in the Dundee Town Council election in June 1921, polling 6,160 votes, and two months later in a by-election at Caerphilly. In 1922, he was appointed as the party's Scottish organiser, but was imprisoned for six months for sedition.

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