Brigadier Roy Charles Whitworth George Firebrace[1] (16 August 1889 – 10 November 1974) was a British Army officer, who served as Head of the British Military Mission in Moscow during the Second World War. He was also a sidereal astrologer, founder and editor of the journal Spica, and a co-founder of the Astrological Association of Great Britain.
Roy Charles Whitworth George Firebrace | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Colonel Firebrace (right) with General Władysław Sikorski in 1940. | |
| Born | 16 August 1889 Halifax, Nova Scotia |
| Died | 10 November 1974 |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service |  British Army |
| Rank | Brigadier |
Early life
editAccording to data reported by him in Spica (January 1973), Firebrace was born on 16 August 1889 at 5:00 p.m. AST, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his English father had an army post. He was second son of Lieutenant-Colonel George Firebrace, of the Royal Artillery, of a branch of the family from which also came the Firebrace baronets, and Agnes Adela, daughter of Henry Aylmer Porter, of Cranborne Court, Windsor Forest, Berkshire. His elder brother was Aylmer Firebrace.[2][3][4]
Military career
editFirebrace was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1908. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel in 1936, colonel in 1937, and retired as a brigadier in 1946. He was the British military attaché in Riga before the beginning of the Second World War and later in Moscow until 1940 as Head of the British Military Mission in Moscow. He acted as an observer and interpreter for Winston Churchill at the Potsdam and Yalta conferences[5] and when Molotov visited London in 1942[6][7] and ran the War Office Russian Liaison Group.[8]
Nikolai Tolstoy recounts some of Firebrace's military views and experiences in his 1977 book, Victims of Yalta.[9] Firebrace is also mentioned in Nicholas Bethell's 1974 book, The Last Secret.[10]
During his service in military intelligence, Firebrace was involved (in 1944) in the affair surrounding the arrest and prosecution of Helen Duncan, a famous British spiritualist medium, under the Witchcraft Act 1735 (9 Geo. 2. c. 5) (repealed by a private member's bill in 1951).[11][12]
Astrology
editThe Brigadier became interested in astrology relatively early in life but it was not until after the war that he became really active in astrological circles. At first his interest extended to psychic studies[5] and for many years he was president of the College of Psychic Studies in London.[13]
A big-framed man, known affectionately as "the Brig", Firebrace worked closely with the eminent siderealist Cyril Fagan (1896–1970) and gained a lifelong interest in sidereal astrology.
Firebrace co-founded the Astrological Association of Great Britain with John Addey in 1958 and was its first president.[14] His enthusiasm for sidereal astrology was resisted by other members; in March 1961 he resigned to found Spica,[15] the quarterly journal he published until October 1974. This publication was a major driving force behind the western siderealist movement in the second half of the 20th century.[16]
Works
editFirebrace wrote a series of books called the "Astrology Moray series" and contributed to American Astrology magazine.
- Astrology Moray series
- Primer of Sidereal Astrology. Astrology Moray series. Vol. 1.
- Wars in the Sidereal. Astrology Moray series. Vol. 2. 1959.
- New Directions in Astrology. Astrology Moray series. Vol. 3. 1959.
- Tertiary Directions. Astrology Moray series. Vol. 4. 1960.
- Current editions
- Fagan, Cyril; Firebrace, Brigadier R. C. (2008). Primer of Sidereal Astrology. American Federation of Astrologers. ISBN 978-0866904278.
Personal life
editIn 1916, Firebrace married Esme, eldest daughter of Henry Claud Lyall, of The Hurst, Headley, Surrey, of a landed gentry family. They had a son, Anthony, and a daughter, linguist Margaret Anne ("Margot"), who respectively married a daughter and a son (Richard John Boileau Walker, curator of the Government Art Collection),[17] of Commander Kenneth Ralph Walker, RN, of Scotnish, Lochgilphead, Argyllshire and the Dower House, Crawley, Hampshire.[18][19]
Notes
edit- ^ The Astrology Game: The Inside Story : the Truth about Astrology, Malcolm Dean, Beaufort Books, 1980, p. 210
- ^ Haley, Reginald (January 2012). "Firebrace, Sir Aylmer Newton George (1886–1972)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/66852. Retrieved 14 July 2013. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 2, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 1663
- ^ "RCWG Firebrace".
- ^ a b Addey, John (1974–1975). "Brigadier R.C.Firebrace, C.B.E." The Astrological Journal. XVII (1). ISSN 0144-6754.
- ^ Gilbert, Martin (2003). Churchill at War: His 'finest hour' in photographs, 1940-1945. Carlton. p. 72. Includes a photograph of Firebrace with Churchill.
- ^ Rzeshevsky, ed. (1996). War and Diplomacy: The Making of the Grand Alliance. Psychology Press. p. 89. ISBN 9783718657902.
- ^ Glees, Anthony (1987). The Secrets of the Service: British intelligence and Communist subversion 1939-51. Cape. pp. 278–279. ISBN 9780224022521.
- ^ Tolstoy, Nikolai. The Secret Betrayal, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1977, ISBN 0-684-15635-0; originally published in London as Victims of Yalta, 1977.
- ^ Bethell, Nicholas (1974). The Last Secret: The Delivery to Stalin of over two million Russians by Britain and the United States. Basic Books. pp. 38, 43. ISBN 9780465038138.
- ^ Gaskill, Malcolm (2001). Hellish Nell: Last of Britain's Witches. Fourth Estate. pp. 184, 276. ISBN 9781841151090.
- ^ Shandler, Nina (2006). The Strange Case of Hellish Nell: The True Story of Helen Duncan and the Witch Trial of World War II. Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780306814389.
- ^ Underwood, Peter (1983). No Common Task: The Autobiography of a Ghost-Hunter. Harrap. ISBN 9780245539596.
- ^ Lewis, James R, The astrology book: the encyclopedia of heavenly influences, p.71. Visible Ink Press, 2003. ISBN 978-1-57859-144-2.
- ^ Burk, Kevin (2001). Astrology: Understanding the Birth Chart: A Comprehensive Guide to Classical Interpretation. Llewellyn Worldwide. p. 337. ISBN 9781567180886.
- ^ Brau, Jean Louis; Weaver, Helen; Edmands, Allan (1980). Larousse Encyclopedia of Astrology. McGraw-Hill. p. 112.
- ^ "Richard Walker obituary". TheGuardian.com. 9 June 2010.
- ^ "Margot Walker, 98: Linguist whose Russian wowed Joseph Stalin".
- ^ Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage, John Debrett, Kelly's Directories Ltd, 1973, p. 2636
References
edit- Ken Gillman, "Roy C. Firebrace", in John McKay-Clements, The Canadian Astrology Collection, Toronto, Canadian Astrology Press, 1998, ISBN 0-9683695-0-2, pp. 24–25.