Editing Leonard Plugge

{{short description|British politician (1889–1981)}}
{{citation style|date=June 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2021}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix   = Captain
| name               = Leonard Plugge
| honorific-suffix   = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|MP}}
| image              = Leonard_plugge.jpg
| caption            = Plugge in 1936
| office             = [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|Member of Parliament]] for [[Chatham (UK Parliament constituency)|Chatham]]
| term_start         = 14 November 1935
| term_end           = 15 June 1945
| predecessor        = [[Park Goff]]
| successor          = [[Arthur Bottomley]]
| birth_name         = Leonard Frank Plugge
| birth_date         = 21 September 1889
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1981|2|19|1889|9|21}}
| party              = [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]]
| spouse             = {{marriage|Ann Muckleston|1935|reason=separated}}
| children           = 3, including [[Gale Benson]]
}}

Captain '''Leonard Frank Plugge''' (21 September 1889 – 19 February 1981) was a British radio entrepreneur and [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] politician.

==Early years and political life==
Plugge was born in [[Walworth]], only son of Frank Plugge (1864–1946), a commercial clerk, and his wife, Mary Chase (1862–1924). His father was a Belgian of Dutch descent.<ref name=dnb>Petheram, Michel, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/65431 "Plugge, Leonard Frank (1889–1981)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, October 2008. Retrieved 15 August 2017 {{subscription required}}</ref> Plugge was educated at [[Dulwich College]], the [[Free University of Brussels (1834–1969)|University of Brussels]] and [[University College London]], where he graduated with a BSc degree in civil engineering in 1915.<ref>{{Who's Who | title = PLUGGE, Capt. Leonard Frank | id = U168148 | type = was | volume = 2018 | edition = online}}</ref> In the First World War, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and in 1918 transferred to the Royal Air Force, where he became a captain. He stayed with the air force until 1921, and in the same year was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society]].<ref name=dnb/>

Plugge was elected [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) for [[Chatham (UK Parliament constituency)|Chatham]] in 1935, defeating the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] candidate [[Hugh Gaitskell]] by a majority of 5,897 votes. He lost in 1945 to [[Arthur Bottomley]], a future Minister of Overseas Development in [[Harold Wilson]]'s first government.

==Offshore years==
Plugge created the '''International Broadcasting Company''' in 1931 as a commercial rival to the [[British Broadcasting Corporation]] by buying airtime from radio stations such as those of [[Radio Normandie|Normandy]], Toulouse, Ljubljana, Juan les Pins, Paris, Poste Parisien, Athlone, Barcelona, Madrid and Rome. IBC worked indirectly with [[Radio Luxembourg]] until 1936. [[World War II]] silenced most of Plugge's stations between 1939 and 1945.

Plugge, a radio enthusiast, would collect the schedules of radio stations he visited during long motoring holidays on the European continent and sell them to the BBC to publish in ''[[Radio Times]]'' and other magazines such as ''[[Wireless World]]''. On one such journey, Plugge asked the café owner at the Café Colonne, located in the coastal village of [[Fécamp]], [[Normandy]], what there was to see in the town. He was told that a young member of the Le Grand family – which owned the town's [[Benedictine]] distillery – had a small radio transmitter behind a piano in his house, and that a local cobbler's business had increased after his name was mentioned during a broadcast.

Plugge went to see Fernand Le Grand and offered to buy time to broadcast programmes in English. Le Grand agreed, and a studio was set up in the loft over the old stables in rue George Cuvier, from which the programmes were broadcast by Plugge's employees. The first presenter was a cashier from the [[National Provincial Bank]]'s [[Le Havre]] branch named [[William Evelyn Kingwell]], whom Plugge had met when drawing cash after leaving Le Grand. Kingwell agreed to motorcycle over on Sundays to introduce records.

Kingwell fell ill and Plugge brought in new announcers, including [[Max Staniforth]] and Stephen Williams, and later [[Bob Danvers-Walker]] and general manager-cum-presenter David Davies, who, after the war, became station manager and managing director of the English-language 'offshore' broadcaster, LM Radio (Radio Lourenco Marques), [[Mozambique]], from 1947 to 1969.<ref>[http://www.lmradio.org/People01.htm LMRadio.org].Accessed 17 August 2007.</ref> Many others joined during the life of Radio Normandy (the station used this anglicised spelling in its British literature and advertising).

The power of the transmitter increased after Plugge convinced film studio and 280-strong cinema chain owner [[Gaumont British]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gaumont-british.co.uk/|title=gaumont british|website=gaumont british|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080614213117/http://www.gaumont-british.co.uk/|archive-date=14 June 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/448165/index.html|title=screenonline: Gaumont-British Picture Corporation Biography|website=British Film Institute|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080209235043/http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/448165/index.html|archive-date=9 February 2008|url-status=live}}</ref> owner of the ''Sunday Referee'', an entertainment-based Sunday newspaper to sponsor him and print Radio Normandy's schedule.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20071112043222/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/734658  ''Sunday Referee Newspaper Advertisement'',1939, British Film Institute]. Accessed 17 August 2007.</ref> A new studio was established in a house in the town.

Radio Normandy by now had a large audience as far north as the English Midlands, and many big names of the day. Among them was [[Roy Plomley]], later famous for creating and presenting ''[[Desert Island Discs]]'' for BBC radio.

===Silenced===
Plugge broadcast from Fécamp and later from a new transmitter and studio at [[Caudebec-en-Caux]], France. [[World War II]] began soon after the studio opened and, according to some histories, German troops overran the transmitters in 1940, using them to broadcast propaganda to Britain until the [[RAF]] bombed the Louvetot transmitter out of action. The French website ''L'Histoire de Radio Normandie'' remembers it differently: "After the Louvetot transmitter closed in 1939 because of the war, IBC went on broadcasting under the name ''Radio International Fécamp'' from ''Radio Normandie'''s first transmitter at Fécamp for "several weeks". On 10 June 1940 French troops sabotaged the transmitter on the eve of the German invasion.'<ref>[http://radionormandie.free.fr/david_newman.htm Announcer David Newman's letters]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Accessed 17 August 2007.</ref>

A 22 October 1939 British War Cabinet memo marked 'SECRET: To Be Kept Under Lock And Key' notes that:

:It was learnt that an obsolete station at Fécamp, controlled by the International Broadcasting Company (of which Captain L. F. Plugge, MP, is the chairman), has been modernised, and had started to work with programmes in English, Czech and Austrian [sic]. The danger of allowing a station so near the Channel to work on its own...was felt by the Air Ministry to be grave...The French Service(s)...are in complete agreement with the British point of view...[and] have confessed that the private interests concerned have got the ear of the civil powers [in France] without reference to factors of national security. It is hoped that the French Service view will shortly prevail.<ref>[http://www.psywar.org/psywar/reproductions/WarCabinetMemos.pdf  ''Publicity In Enemy Countries'']. Accessed 17 August 2007.</ref>

It appears the British government was not interested in Plugge's invitation to broadcast Allied propaganda from Radio Normandy transmitters, even if they had not been destroyed.

Plugge hoped to restart transmissions from France after the war but changes in broadcasting regulations and a different attitude to radio listening meant that this never happened. The post-war president, [[Charles de Gaulle]], also had a different attitude to the station.

Radio Normandy had a bigger audience in southern England on Sundays than the BBC. Under [[John Reith, 1st Baron Reith|Lord Reith]], the BBC was off the air until late on Sundays to give people time to go to church, and offered little but serious music and discussions. Broadcasting historians have said that Reith reluctantly agreed to lighten the BBC's programmes on Sundays after his audience deserted him for Radio Normandy's light music. That, some have said, was a reason that Reith left the BBC, feeling his mission to educate, inform and entertain with what he judged to be programmes of high moral tone had been cut away by rank commercial entertainment driven by money.

The IBC's original London offices were in Hallam Street, near the BBC's Broadcasting House, then moved to nearby 35–36 Portland Place. This was taken over by a British weapons development unit [[MD1|MRI(c)]] at the start of the war but later bombed. The BBC's [[BBC Radio 1|Radio 1]], inheritor of the audiences that Plugge's offshore successors had built until the 1967 [[Marine Broadcasting Offences Act]] made them illegal, later moved into the Hallam Street building. After the war IBC became a recording studio and stars including [[The Who]], [[The Kinks]], [[The Rolling Stones]] and [[Jimi Hendrix]] recorded there.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ibcstudio.co.uk/ |title=IBC Studio/Homegrown Music, undated |access-date=12 January 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060617021304/http://www.ibcstudio.co.uk/ |archive-date=17 June 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

It has been suggested that Leonard Plugge was the inventor of the two-way [[car]] [[radiotelephone]].<ref>[http://www.ibcstudio.co.uk/earlydaysindex.html ''The Early Days of Radio Normandy'', Brian Carroll, ''IBC Studio/Homegrown Music'', undated] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061208090812/http://www.ibcstudio.co.uk/earlydaysindex.html |date=8 December 2006 }}.Accessed 17 August 2007.</ref> It is also claimed that the term of "plugging" something by advertising was derived from the name of Leonard Plugge. Plugge pronounced his name "Plooje", claiming Flemish origins. It was only when he stood for the parliamentary seat of Chatham that he agreed to the slogan "Plugge in for Chatham" and accepted the way everybody else pronounced his name.

==Later life==
In the 1960s and 1970s, Plugge moved in a social set that included [[Princess Margaret]], her husband photographer [[Anthony Armstrong-Jones]], broadcaster [[Julian Pettifer]] and English model [[April Ashley]].<ref>[http://www.antijen.org/Aprilv1/  ''April Ashley's Odyssey'' – Duncan Fallowell, April Ashley, Cape, 1982].Accessed 17 August 2007.</ref>

The film ''[[Performance (film)|Performance]]'', starring [[Mick Jagger]] and [[James Fox]], was filmed in Plugge's house in [[Lowndes Square]]. Plugge moved to [[Hollywood, California|Hollywood]], California in 1972, and died there on 19 February 1981 at the age of 91.<ref name="dnb" />

== Family ==
[[File:Leonard and Ann Plugge, 1935.jpg|thumb|upright|Ann and Leonard Plugge, 1935]]
Captain Plugge married (Gertrude) Ann Muckleston (13 January 1909 – 1993) in New York on 28 October 1935, a little over two weeks before he was elected to the House of Commons. They had three children. Plugge and his wife separated in the early 1950s.<ref name="dnb" />

His daughter [[Gale Benson|Gale Ann]], who had married and divorced Jonathan Benson, was in [[Trinidad]] with her partner, the American [[Black Power]] leader [[Hakim Jamal]], when she was stabbed and buried alive in January 1972 by Stanley Abbott and Edward Chadee, allegedly on the orders of [[Michael X]] whom Jamal also followed.<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/7366 ''Without Regret or Hope'' (book review), New York Review of Books, 12 June 1980]. Accessed 17 August 2007.</ref><ref>[http://www.historytalk.org/Tom%20Vague%20Pop%20History/Chp%205.pdf ''Underground, Overground'' History Talk oral history project, undated] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070707132028/http://www.historytalk.org/Tom%20Vague%20Pop%20History/Chp%205.pdf|date=7 July 2007}}. Accessed 17 August 2007.</ref><ref name=TheAge>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YBEQAAAAIBAJ&pg=4566,3875225&dq=hakim+jamal+murder&hl=en |title=Two Will Hang for Burial Murder |date=July 18, 1973 |work=[[The Age]] |access-date=July 22, 2011 }}</ref> 

Her twin brother, Greville, died in a road accident in [[Morocco]] a year later.

==Etymology of "to plug"==
In his book ''Red Herrings and White Elephants'', the English language researcher Albert Jack writes that Plugge partially financed Radio Normandy by receiving payments to play and promote records, which is probably the origin of the verb to "plug" a record.<ref>{{Citation | last = Jack | first = Albert | title = Red Herrings and White Elephants | place = Great Britain | publisher = Metro Publishing | pages = 127 | date = 2004 | isbn = 1-84358-129-9}}</ref> However, the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' contradicts this suggestion, dating the first use of  "plug" in the sense of "promotion" to as early as 1900.

[[Rupert Vansittart]] played Plugge in the 2008 film ''[[The Bank Job]]''.

==References==
{{reflist}}

===Bibliography===
* {{Cite book|title=And the World Listened: The Biography of Captain Leonard F. Plugge – A Pioneer of Commercial Radio|last=Wallis|first=Keith|publisher=Kelly Publications|year=2008|isbn=978-1-9030-5323-2}}
* {{Cite book|title=Uw naam is Plug(ge)?|last=Plugge|first=Joost|publisher=Quoad Fornam|year=1990|isbn=90-6851-003-7|location=Leende}}

==External links==
* [http://www.lmradio.org/Sounds/Radio_normandy_sign-off_Roy_Plomley.mp3 Roy Plomley closes down a day's broadcasting by Plugge's Radio Normandy] (format: MP3, file hosted at http://www.lmradio.org/Sounds.htm).
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927033354/http://www.offshoreechos.com/radionormandie/_private/radio_normandie.ra ''Radio Normandy Calling'' – Roy Plomley previews programmes] (format: RealAudio)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20121010111503/https://www.kent.ac.uk/arts/sound-journal/Street19991.html  ''Radio For Sale: Sponsored Programming in British Radio during the 1930s'' – Sean Street, Bournemouth University]
* [http://www.psywar.org/psywar/reproductions/WarCabinetMemos.pdf British War Cabinet secret memo on Plugge's broadcasting, October 1939]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070930094149/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787951,00.html Time, ''Pioneers'', Monday, 21 January 1935]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061208090812/http://www.ibcstudio.co.uk/earlydaysindex.html IBC Studio The early days of Radio Normandy] (includes pictures of Plugge and of one of Radio Normandy's mobile units)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110719142523/http://www.offshoreechos.com/radionormandie/RadioNormandie00.htm] https://web.archive.org/web/20110719142523/http://www.offshoreechos.com/radionormandie/RadioNormandie00.htm
* {{Hansard-contribs | captain-leonard-plugge | Leonard Plugge }}
* {{Rayment-hc|external links=y|date=March 2012}}
* [http://radio.normandie.free.fr/ Captain Plugge on Radio Normandy (website in English and French)

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{{succession box
  | title  = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Chatham (UK Parliament constituency)|Chatham]]
  | years  = [[1935 United Kingdom general election|1935]]–[[1945 United Kingdom general election|1945]]
  | before = [[Sir Park Goff]]
  | after  = [[Arthur Bottomley]]
}}
{{S-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plugge, Leonard F.}}
[[Category:1889 births]]
[[Category:1981 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of University College London]]
[[Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1935–1945]]
[[Category:Pirate radio personalities]]
[[Category:Royal Navy officers]]