Herman Henry Yeatman "Hal" Woolf (23 June 19021939 Register, The National Archives, RG101/0478H/016/19 Letter Code: ASDC, schedule 223 sub no 123 November 1962) was a British artist who died in police custody under disputed circumstances. His second ex-wife, Greta, campaigned for an official inquiry. The Government held an enquiry chaired by Norman Skelhorn QC, which was held in private. The final report was published in March 1964 and the evidence released to the UK National Archives in 1995. This inquiry led to changes in police procedure notably with regard to charging semi-conscious or unconscious suspects.
This case was also the start of Private Eye becoming an investigative as well as a satirical magazine.
Early life Hal Woolf was the second childThe National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew, Surrey, England; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911 born in Hampstead to Michael Yeatman Woolf (20 January 1869UK National Archives, 1939 Register, Ref: RG101/2597A/012/20 Letter Code: EMJV-14 May 1941Will of Michael Yeatman Woolf, Probate Lewes, 23 July 1941) and his wife Rose Woolf née Nashelski (January 1872- 4 November 1940Will of Rose Woolf, Probate Llandudno, 26 February 1941). His father was a dentist in Wimpole Street, London and his mother was Jewish and born in Christchurch, New Zealand. She was a published author of children's books under the name Rose Yeatman Woolf. He had an elder sister, Eileen Hine Yeatman Woolf who was born in 1898 and died of cancer in 1918.General Register Office; United Kingdom; 1918, Volume: 1a; Page: 1381
Education After education at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St Johns Wood Hal attended Warwick House school in Westminster and then studied at the City & Guilds Engineering College in London where he gained a BSc in Engineering in 1920. He did not attend Westminster School and London University as stated in Police records and contemporary newspapers. Following this he studied art at Chelsea Polytechnic under Bernard Adams from 1920–1922 and later in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
Life and career
Artist He exhibited at the Redfern Gallery and with the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the London Group, and with the National Society of Painters and Gravers to which body he was elected a member in 1946.
Hal's first solo exhibition of 50 works was at The Redfern Gallery from 19 September to 12 October 1929Redfern Gallery (1929) Oils, watercolours by Hal Woolf, London. Redfern Gallery. Catalogues. 1924-1932. [London]: Redfern Gallery, The National Art Library which was reviewed in the Yorkshire Post & Leeds Intelligencer: "interesting, alive, and rich in promise", "well up in the second class".
The Times also reviewed the exhibition: "Mr Woolf will paint better when he simplifies his motives"
There was a posthumous exhibition of Woolf's work at the Woodstock Gallery in 1964. This followed an appeal to lend works by Greta Woolf. The exhibition was reviewed by Arthur Moyse in Freedom, The Anarchist Weekly, on 18 January 1964:
"of a type and style that graces so many conservative mixed shows", "pitched in the key of Pissarro", "Colour dies upon the canvas and every scene is seen through a grey veil", "Yet for all that Woolf was a man who loved his craft", "Hal Woolf deserves to be honoured, not for any cultural values it may offer but as the work of a man who loved the craft he chose to practice".
Hal painted in oil, watercolour and gouache. His work comprised townscapes, landscapes and portraits. The commissioned portraits seem to mostly date from the interwar years. A number of his portraits, especially the later ones, are of friends. Among those he is known to have painted are Oliver Messel and two of Beatrice Eden, the first wife of Anthony Eden.
His 1930s landscapes & townscapes are often of Spanish scenes. In the 1950s he painted scenes closer to where he lived at 21 Delamere Terrace, Paddington.London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; Electoral Registers, 1956, p10
Author Hal had a short story "Twenty-Four Hours", published in a collection of short stories by different authors in 1934.
Other In his Army record Hal listed a number of other jobs: Scenario writer, Animated cartoonist, and Art director (cinema).
When died he was living at 21 Bourne Terrace, Paddington and working for the postal department of London University.
Spain Hal travelled to Mallorca in November 1935 and his first wife Mamie followed in 1936. Hal went to Ibiza on the weekend of 18-19 July 1936, the day after the Spanish Civil War started on the 17 July 1936, but Mamie stayed in Mallorca. Mamie & Hal were separated by the outbreak of the Battle of Majorca which was from 16 August to 12 September 1936 when the Republican forces attempted an invasion. Mamie returned to England in a destroyer. Subsequently she received a letter from her husband in which he stated that he was living with a woman in France and intended to take a flat for her in London.
Hal was in Barcelona before July 1936 painting landscapes and meeting left-wing intellectuals in bars. During the Spanish Civil War, he had a reputation as a fixer and his sympathies were with the Republicans but he was not a communist. He was in Barcelona during the second half of 1938 and may not have left until early 1939.
The Brian Sewell Archive contains a letter from Brian Sewell to Dick Brewis dated 14 September 1981 which is part of a lengthy correspondence from 1981 to 1982 which describes Hal’s time in Spain. The source is a Spanish emigré, then in his mid-eighties, whose alias was Jesus Hernandez:
Hal is on the Electoral Register at 48 Lower Sloane Street in 1946.
WW2 Service Woolf served as a Temporary Captain in a Royal Engineers camouflage unit in North Africa. His war substantive rank was Lieutenant. Julian Trevelyan in his memoir Indigo Days referred to Hal: "We drive to Haifa, and meet Barclay Russell and Hal Woolf, who is very much in his element as a camouflage officer and who makes many clandestine trips to Jerusalem". In a newspaper report of Hal's first conviction for possession of marijuana it says he was in East Africa. Hal volunteered for the army in 1939,UK National Archives, MEPO/2/10522 went abroad in 1941 and returned to the UK in 1946. He was discharged with the rank of Captain. He was abroad in the army in the Middle East from at least 1942.
Use of marijuana Whilst in Cairo during WW2 Hal developed the habit of smoking Indian hemp (marijuana). The Home Office report stated that he made no secret of his use of marijuana and that he did not smoke it in public. He was prosecuted twice: 1946 when he was fined £10 () and 1948 when he was fined £30 ().
Connection to the Profumo scandal Hal died in November 1962 and his story broke in August 1963. The Profumo scandal broke at the same time.
Hal knew at least two of the people on the fringes of the Profumo Scandal. In the 1950s he lived at 21 Delamere Terrace, Paddington in a house also lived in by Henry and Ruth Milton. Ruth had previously been known as Elizabeth Hamilton-Marshall. Her daughter Paula Hamilton-Marshall was a close friend of Christine Keeler and went to prison for perjury because she falsely accused Lucky Gordon of attacking Christine whereas it was in fact her brother John.
Hal was close friends with Henry & Ruby Milton and painted both of them, as did Lucian Freud who lived next door. Ruby was the model for Freud's La Voisine and Henry & his stepdaughter Paula were the models for Father & daughter.
Hal made Henry Milton the reserve executor of his will and both Henry & Ruby were beneficiaries.Will of Herman Henry Yeatman Woolf, probate London 29 October 1963.
Hal also knew Vasco Lozzolo.
Personal life
First wife - Mamie Clara HURMAN Hal married Mamie Clara Hurman (4 August 1902UK National Archives, 1939 Register, RG101/2164H/009/3 Letter Code:DWRI, Schedule 113, sub schedule 1 – 1 June 1963Will of Mamie Clara Woolf. Probate Winchester 22 August 1963.) on 13 July 1927 and they divorced in 1937 following his adultery with Margaret Gibbons (alias of Margaret Gerbeit) who became Hal's second wife.UK National Archives, J77/3723 Mamie did not remarry. They had a child, Peter Conrad Woolf, who diedDeaths, General Register Office; United Kingdom; April 1929, Volume 1a, page 641 6 hours after birth on 7 May 1929 having been born prematurely at 7 ½ months.Births, General Register Office; United Kingdom; April 1929; Volume 1a, page 774
Before WW2 Mamie worked as a part-time personal assistant to Ivor Brown, drama critic of The Observer, for fifteen years until 1942 and also worked as an antiques dealer. From 1942 until 1944 she worked as a secretary in section D/CR of SOE.UK National Archives, HS9/1620/9 The section of her SOE personnel file which lists the countries she has been to does not include Spain. In the 1945 General Election Mamie was the election agent for Tom Wintringham. After WW2 Mamie returned to antique dealing and lived with her mother in Winchester.Will of Clara Louisa Hurman, Probate Winchester 22/October/1963 Mamie died on 1 June 1963. Her death certificate says she died of: Peritonitis, Carsinomatosis and Carcinoma of the breast.Deaths, General Register Office, United Kingdom, June 1963, Vol 6B, page 753
Second wife - Margaret Meta Luis GERBEIT On 3 October 1939Marriage certificate, General Register Office; United Kingdom; 1939, Volume: 1b; Page: 262 Hal married Margaret "Greta" Gibbons (19 November 1914-11 September 2011). She gave her father's name as Michael Charles Gibbons and his profession as engineer. Although she gives her name as Margaret Gibbons on the marriage certificate, the 1937 electoral registerLondon Metropolitan Archives; London, England; Electoral Registers, Chelsea, LCC/PER/B/2139, p202 and the 1939 phone book (as Greta)BT Archives; London, England; British Phone Books 1880-1984: 1939, London, page 2800 her real name was Margaret or Greta Meta Luise GerbeitPaul Mellon Centre, London. Brian Sewell Archive, BS 2/3/2Death certificate, General Register Office; United Kingdom; 2011, Entry number 505532851 and she was born in Berlin.
Greta’s father was Gustav Gerbeit. He served in the Imperial German Navy in WW1 and died of pneumonia in 1915. Her mother was Hannah or Hannchen Gerbeit née Gloger (13 April 1889 – 7 September 1945). Hannchen was an early member of the German Communist Party (KPD) and later of the German resistance to the Nazis. She was murdered by a Russian soldier on 7 September 1945.
Hannchen had two children with her husband, Lotte (Charlotte) and Greta (Margaret).
In the 1920s Hannchen met Heinrich Goldberg who started a commune. She had two sons, Vertuelmo and Sajero, with him and a daughter, Tamen, with another member of the commune.
Greta was a member of the Young Communists and came to the attention of the Gestapo.
Her picture appeared on the cover of a communist tear-off calendar in 1930 or 1931, and "Oskar" (her nickname because she was "as cheeky as Oskar", who was a cheeky figure in Berlin underground culture) thus became known throughout Germany.
In the early 1930s she left home and started working as a photographer and model with Traut Hajdu.
In 1933 Greta appeared on the title page of Arbeiter Illustrie Zeitung, a Communist newspaper:
"Grete got the roughest deal of all, at least as seen from our middle class perspective. In 1933, just at the time Hitler came to power, her blond proletarian beauty graced the title page of the Communist Arbeiter Illustrie Zeitung (Worker's Illustrated Newspaper). She had to flee at once, and went to Spain, where she found no other way to make a living except with her beautiful body."
Greta left Germany with her friends and went to Ibiza where there was an embryonic artists’ colony based around the hotel-pension "Ca Vostra" run by Lene-Schneider Kainer.