Sydney Stanley

Sidney (or Sydney) Stanley (né Solomon Wulkan, alias Solomon Koszyski, alias Stanley Rechtand, later Schlomo ben Chaim) (1899/1905 – 1969) was a Polish émigré to the UK who became a dubious businessman of precarious ethics before claiming to be a contact man, able to influence politicians and civil servants in return for cash bribes, claims that led to a great scandal and investigation by the Lynskey tribunal of 1948. There is also evidence that Stanley spied against the UK for the armed nationalist activist Irgun organisation. Stanley was ordered deported, but had lost his Polish nationality, and as a result was a stateless person. Stanley was then placed under heavy restrictions and police surveillance. In 1949, he evaded police and fled to France and thence to Israel, where he was granted citizenship through right-of-return. There he lived out the remainder of his life in relative obscurity.

Stanley was the eldest son of twelve children born in Poland. He had emigrated to Britain with his father in 1913, the rest of the family following when the two had settled in Aldgate. He later said he was born in Oświęcim. He was granted a Polish passport in 1927. He gave a fairly ambiguous account of his early career but seems to have been employed from the age of 14 in garment sales and trading, especially in government contracts. He took his mother's name Koszyski.

He married his first wife Kate Zeitlin after World War I and the couple lived in Stoke Newington with Zeitlin's mother.

Stanley was made bankrupt in 1927, under the name Wulkan, and again in 1936, under the name Blotz. A deportation order was made against him in 1933 for conspiracy to defraud though he proved untraceable. However, by 1946, he had established himself in a luxurious seven-room apartment in Park Lane.

According to Stanley, in 1946, he was returning by train from a business trip to Manchester when the guard enquired whether he would make up a foursome for a game of solo whist with some other men. He consequently met George Gibson, a director of the Bank of England. Gibson's account is that his party had asked Stanley for small change for their game and that Stanley had recognised Gibson through a common acquaintance, Cyril Ross.

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