EXPLORE
- Special Exhibition Gallery
• Audio Visual Room
• Museum Gallery
• Tom Crean Room
• Knight’s Hall
• Medieval Experience
- Special Exhibition Gallery
• Audio Visual Room
• Museum Gallery
• Tom Crean Room
• Knight’s Hall
• Medieval Experience
Special Exhibition Gallery William Melville: SpymasterWilliam Melville, a publican’s son from Sneem Co. Kerry, left rural Ireland to become a policeman pounding the streets of bustling London in the 1870s. In 1882 he was chosen to be one of the founding members of the Special Irish Branch, set up to deal specifically with a Fenian dynamite campaign in England. In 1887 Melville was promoted to Inspector and established himself as a hardline foe of social revolutionaries and anarchists as well as Fenians. By the mid 1890s Chief Inspector Melville was increasingly called upon to protect royalty and visiting heads of state. Famed as the King’s detective, Melville retired from public view at the peak of his career to begin a new life as an espionage agent. Recruited by British Secret Service in 1903, Melville, now known as ‘M’, foiled a German spy network just as war broke out in 1914. During the war Melville was busier than ever as German spies continued to arrive in Britain. The pace took its toll and he died of kidney failure before the war ended, in February 1918.
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