James McNeish spoke to the 2006 Wellington conference “New Zealand and the Spanish Civil War” on Desmond Patrick (Des or Paddy) Costello and Griffith (Griff) Campbell Maclaurin. However, that relationship was more complex than so far revealed.

Auckland Grammar school

Maclaurin was born 19 September 1909 in Auckland, and educated in the Waikato until the end of 1924. His father was a Primary School Headmaster. Costello was born in Auckland 31 January 1912; two years four months and 12 days after Maclaurin, and his father was a small businessperson who died young. Costello started in the Third Form of Auckland Grammar School in 1923, with both a Rawlings and a Junior National Scholarship, while Maclaurin started his Third Form at Hamilton High School in 1922. In 1924 while in the Fourth Form Division A Costello’s best results were 4th in French and 5th in Latin, while in 1925 in the Fifth Form Division A Costello was 3rd in Latin, 5th in French, and 9th in English. In 1925, Costello also won a Senior National Scholarship. Maclaurin started Auckland Grammar in 1925 in the Lower Sixth Form Division A, and his best results were 6th in English, 8th in Mathematics and 9th in French. In 1926, Costello in Sixth Form Division B was top in English, Latin and French, while Maclaurin in the Upper Sixth best result was 11th in Mathematics, but he won the History prize. Obviously some mixed results.

Maclaurin spent both 1926 and 1927 in the Upper 6th Form, and Costello caught up with him in 1927. Both shone in debates. In 1925, the comment on Costello was “the speech was well delivered, but the speaker nibbled somewhat at the arguments which his colleagues brought forward later” (Auckland Grammar School Chronicle, 1925, page 51). On another occasion, he spoke “for no side in particular … (and) … had very little bearing upon the subject. He also said that schoolboys’ opinions were not to be considered and that they carried little weight” (ibid). In 1926 however, “though somewhat halting in manner … (Costello’s) … speech was redeemed by his statistics, and aided his side considerably. Maclaurin delivered his speech in “a clear and quiet manner” (Auckland Grammar School Chronicle, November 1926, page 58).

In the 1927 form debate Costello lead for the negative with Maclaurin part of his team. Costello “spoke clearly and in good style, but didn’t give sufficient detail, and was too fast in his delivery” (Auckland Grammar School Chronicle, November 1927, page 52). Maclaurin on the other hand “spoke well and entirely without notes” (ibid). In 1927, Costello came 4th in English while Maclaurin came 9th, Costello came 2nd in Latin while Maclaurin came 8th, Costello came 2nd in French while Maclaurin came 13th, and Costello came 21st in Science while Maclaurin came 24th, but, Maclaurin came 6th in Mathematics while Costello came 23rd. Maclaurin again won the Senior History prize and for the University Entrance National Scholarship Maclaurin took Mathematics, Latin, English, French and History. Costello came second in New Zealand, and won the Lissie Rathbone Scholarship in English and History.

The University of Auckland

Both “wunderkind” started at the University of Auckland in 1928. Maclaurin studied Pure and Applied Mathematics (top for 1929 and 1930), Physics, History (top for both years) and French. In 1930, Maclaurin was awarded the Sir George Grey Scholarship, but relinquished it on winning the University Senior Scholarship in Applied Mathematics, and in 1931 graduated an MA with First Class Honours in Mathematics. He also won the Cook Prize for special excellence in Mathematics.

In 1928, 1929 and 1930 Costello came top in Latin and studied Greek (top in 1930), French (just beaten by Maclaurin in 1928), and top in Hebrew in 1929. He graduated in 1931 with an MA with First Class Honours in both Latin and Greek, and is still regarded as one of the best students ever in that faculty. Neither appears to have been active in the Students Association, or particularly political.

Maclaurin applied for a Colonial Exhibition at St John’s College, following on from his uncle the late Dr Richard Cockburn Maclaurin, who was later President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His 1931 letter of application included references from both the Mathematics and History faculties, and he was admitted on 16 March 1932. Costello and Maclaurin both left Auckland Harbour together on the “Maunganui” on 29 July 1932, with Costello going to Clare College in Cambridge via Australia. However, despite being in the same class in 1927, studying French at the same time at University and leaving for Cambridge on the same ship, one doesn’t get the sense of a close relationship.

Cambridge University

Maclaurin had already noted the “lower standard of the New Zealand examinations” (letter to St Johns College, 2 July 1931), and that he was not “yet in a position to do original work” in Mathematics. Maclaurin was basically insufficiently prepared for Cambridge, in part because of the lack of intellectual challenge in the teaching of Mathematics at Auckland under Professor Segar who retired in 1934 (Sinclair, pages 131 and 132). While visiting Hitler’s Germany in 1933, Maclaurin noted he was “sorry I did not do better in Part One … (and) … I had not had sufficient practice in working Tripos papers under examinations conditions. I found I was far too slow in the examination room” (to Mr Wordie, 23 June 1933). He passed Part One of the Tripos in Mathematics with Second Class Honours and the second with Third Class in 1934, enabling him to graduate with a BA from St John’s.

Maclaurin had previously written in a jolly manner “you should come to Cambridge, where everyone thinks the most outrageous thoughts (at least to the outside world), and what is more, generally expresses them” (Craccum, 19 June 1933, page 7). But, later wrote that his first year at Cambridge “was not very valuable in itself, apart from the fact that it gave me time to get used to living under altogether new conditions” (“Kiwi”, 1937, page 79). He also “accepted society as he found it … was quite frankly a conservative and at heart very much of a snob” (ibid). He joined the Cambridge University Conservative Association, having a “deep distrust of Socialism and a dislike of Communism … where he listened to the ablest members of that party whose philosophy he absorbed. He was bright, alert in mind and body, fond of games – a good ‘mixer’, and moved freely among those most likely to appreciate those qualities – the upper class. A few years later he wrote: ‘Now that I have been able to acquire in a short space of time many of those accomplishments which pass for culture, I realise how very little intelligence is needed to obtain them’ “ (ibid, page 80).

What changed Maclaurin was a visit to Nazi Germany in mid 1933. He “began to move to the left in politics, and it was largely a result of his observations of European conditions, his sympathy for the hard-working poor, and his hatred of oppression and intolerance … to Fascism, Maclaurin’s reaction was more than indignation, real but futile. He satisfied himself on the reason for this sorry scheme of things entire, and through wide reading on Socialism and Communism, was finally converted” (ibid, page 80). He eventually left the Cambridge University Conservative Association in favour of the Cambridge University Socialist Society.

The later Canadian academic and diplomat Herbert Norman arrived in Cambridge in mid 1933. A self-confessed “arm chair” socialist, he was soon caught up with the so-called “inner group” of Cambridge Communists such as Guy Burgess, Donald Mclean and John Cornford. He also became friends with Griff Maclaurin, and both he and Cornford are mentioned in private correspondence. Norman graduated in spring 1935, before the advent of the Apostles and their ardent recruiting of Soviet spies, but did join the Communist Party while at Cambridge around the same time as Maclaurin. Norman was shattered by Maclaurin’s death and wrote he knew Maclaurin “through political meetings etc in Cambridge and (we) moved leftward together at the same speed and with the same sort of hesitancy and finally reaching the same goal at the same time” (Bowen, page 68). This is likely from mid 1933 to mid 1934 when Maclaurin graduated. It should be noted that Norman was even more affected by the death of Cornford in December 1936, and under questioning in 1950 Norman downplayed his relationship with Maclaurin stressing his former membership of the Conservative Association. Norman had no obvious encounter with Costello, and it is likely that Costello and Maclaurin were still not as close as they were later.

Costello’s path to joining the Communist Party at Cambridge followed a different route. Unlike Maclaurin he didn’t join the Socialist Society via the Conservatives, and McNeish quotes an early Costello letter from Cambridge describing Maclaurin as “a most uninteresting little fellow” (McNeish, page 43). Future letters home by both parties illustrate a developing friendship.

It was really Costello’s future wife Bella Lerner, who he met in June 1935 apparently at Maclaurin’s bookshop, which gave Costello some real political direction. Soon after, Costello joined the Communist Party, over a year after Maclaurin. However, joining the Communist Party of Great Britain (C.P.G.B.) was not like joining a tennis club. It was an activist party with many meetings, emphasis on fund raising through newspaper sales etc and organising Party favoured causes. Just as in a 1925 debate at Auckland Grammar Costello had spoken for “no side in particular”, so his decision to choose sides and become more politically active had been a slow one.

The remainder of both of their lives is well covered by Hunt, McNeish and others. By 1936 Maclaurin and Costello were close friends, and both active members of the C.P.G.B.. At the end of 1936 Maclaurin was killed while fighting in Spain, and Costello’s later career was dogged by allegations of spying. He died in 1964.

Bibliography:

Auckland Grammar School Chronicle.

Bowen, Roger. Innocence is not enough; the life and death of Herbert Norman. Vancouver, Douglas & McIntyre, 1986.

Craccum (Auckland University Student’s Association)

Hunt, Graeme. Spies and revolutionaries; a history of New Zealand subversion. Auckland, Reed, 2007.

Kiwi (Auckland University Student’s Association).

McNeish, James. The sixth man: the extraordinary life of Paddy Costello. Auckland, Random House, 2007.

Sinclair, Keith. A history of the University of Auckland 1883-1983.

University of Auckland Calendars.

Copyright - David Verran - 2008