ST PETER’S SCHOOL YORK ALUMNI - TRAITOR, HERETIC, SCHOLAR, SPY
GUY FAWKES, BILL FAIRCLOUGH, JOHN JOHNSON (JJ) & MI6
Osama bin Laden’s attack on the USA on 9/11 in 2001 may have partially succeeded but his notoriety will never equal that of Guy Fawkes, the York born British terrorist who failed to blow up the British Parliament in 1605. After all, every 5 November since 1605, millions of people across the world have celebrated Guy Fawkes Night lighting bonfires and setting off fireworks whereas 9/11 is now sadly mourned by fewer people as each anniversary passes.
Was Guido Fawkes a wicked guy? Probably not to the extent those who prevented him from dynamiting Parliament might have wanted us to believe. Nonetheless, he was fully aware he was up to no good and even used the pseudonym John Johnson or JJ to ensure his identity was kept secret. On the other hand he was a religious man (or heretic) who was famously described as "the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions".
Guy Fawkes along with a few of his co-conspirators attended St Peter’s School, York in England. The school was founded in 627AD by St Paulinus of York. It is the third oldest school in the world and is still a boarding school to this day. Despite its longevity the school has not spawned many truly famous or infamous alumni apart from Guy Fawkes and John Barry (of James Bond music fame). Some of the school’s alumni known as Old Peterites are listed on Wikipedia as "People educated at St Peter's School, York" but there is one notable name missing.
There is no mention of the spy Bill Fairclough aka Edward Burlington, the protagonist and author of The Burlington Files series of espionage thrillers. He obtained a scholarship to St Peter’s School and was a boarder there in the Manor House from 1963 to 1968. Not long after leaving school, Bill Fairclough was recruited to work as a secret agent for MI6 by Colonel Alan Brooke Pemberton CVO MBE of British Intelligence. They worked together intermittently until the 1990s.
Alan Pemberton’s recruits and “friends” were known colloquially in British Intelligence as Pemberton’s People. Apart from Bill Fairclough they included Roy Richards (Winston Churchill’s bodyguard), one eccentric British Brigadier (Peter 'Scrubber' Stewart-Richardson) who tried to join the Afghan Mujahideen, Peter Goss an SAS Colonel and JIC member (involved in the Clockwork Orange Plot concerning Prime Minister Harold Wilson) and even the infamous rogue Major Freddy Mace who impudently highlighted his cat burgling and silent killing skills in his CV.
So what has all this got to do with Guy Fawkes? British Intelligence bestowed upon Bill Fairclough the same codename used by Guy Fawkes, namely John Johnson or JJ courtesy of them both having attended the same school. Given he risked his life on many occasions for his country and that MI6 had covertly acknowledged his ties to St Peter’s School you might have thought that at the very least he would have been listed along with other Old Peterites named in Wikipedia or on the school’s website.
As hilariously noted in some of Bill Fairclough’s biographies he was so undisciplined at boarding school that two contemporaneous schoolmasters who co-wrote an official history of St Peter’s School in the 1960s allegedly alluded to him as having been the most beaten, gated and punished pupil in the school’s long history. He was suspended in his last term for outrageous conduct when he was in Oxford supposedly clinching a promised scholarship whilst unwittingly being considered for recruitment by MI6.
Indeed, the only reason he was never expelled was because he had obtained a scholarship to St Peter’s School itself and no matter what, the school did not expel its own scholars. Nevertheless, Guy Fawkes didn’t get a scholarship yet still gets a mention on the school’s website even though he was hung, drawn and quartered!
If interested do read more about Bill Fairclough’s “education” in one of his bios (freely available on the web) and think about what he doesn’t disclose. In addition, do read Beyond Enkription, the first non-fiction thriller detailing his exploits as an MI6 agent in 1974. It was published in 2014 as the first stand-alone novel in The Burlington Files series. As for the misspelling of Enkription … that was intentional and not down to a lack of education!
This article was first published on November 5, 2022.