Sir Walter Fletcher CBE MP (8 April 1892 – 6 April 1956) was a British businessman, World War I veteran, Special Operations Executive's secret agent and smuggler, fine art artist and Conservative Party politician.^[2][3]

Born Walter Fleischl von Marxow, he was the second son of Paul Fleischl von Marxow and his wife Cecile (née Levis)^[4] of Shagbrooke, Reigate, Surrey.^[3][5] His father was an Austrian-born woolbroker, brother of Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, who became a naturalised British citizen in 1887.^[6]

Following education at Charterhouse School and the University of Lausanne, he began training as a manager in the rubber industry.^[3]

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914 he entered the British Army, obtaining a commission in the Army Ordnance Department. He served in East Africa, and by the end of the war in 1918 had reached the rank of major.^[3]

In September 1919 he changed his name by deed poll to Walter Fletcher.^[7] He returned to Africa, where he managed a large number of rubber plantations. He returned to England, where he subsequently became chairman and managing director of Hecht, Levis and Kahn, a major rubber and commodities company. He held the position for thirty years.^[3] In 1928 he married Esme Boyd.^[3]

In late 1940, Fletcher approached Special Operations Executive and offered them his expertise. He was eventually assigned to Force 136 and ran an operation called Operation Remorse.^[1] Originally it was hoped Fletcher could use his contacts to smuggle rubber out of Japanese-occupied Malaya and Indo-China through the Chinese black market. The operation was diversified to include the smuggling of foreign currency, diamonds and machinery to fund SOE's activities.^[8][9]

Colin Mackenzie, the head of Force 136 (SOE in the Far East), said of Fletcher, “He did it very well… even in the early days I had £20,000 of diamonds across my desk in one go. One estimate is that the net profit was worth £77 million.”^[10] Mackenzie also commented:

Walter was gloriously fat. It was rumoured that he won the hundred yards at Charterhouse when he was nineteen stone. I didn’t believe it, but when I saw him running for a bus when he was still nineteen stone I began to believe it might be true.

In 1947 Fletcher was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his war service.^[3]

Politically, Fletcher was a Conservative, and he was selected as the party's prospective parliamentary candidate for the Birkenhead East seat in 1930. However, with the formation of a National Government prior to the 1931 general election he stood aside to allow Henry Graham White, a Liberal member of the government to hold the seat.^[3]

He was elected at the 1945 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bury in Lancashire.^[3][11] When that constituency was abolished for the 1950 election, he was returned for the new Bury and Radcliffe constituency,^[2] and held the seat until he retired from the House of Commons at the 1955 general election.^[3] In 1953 he was knighted.^[3]

In addition to his business and political interests, Fletcher had extensive farms in Hertfordshire.^[3] He was also an accomplished painter, exhibiting at the Royal Academy and in Bond Street galleries.^[3]

Fletcher died at his London home in April 1956 aged 63.^[3] He was buried in Sacombe, near Ware, Hertfordshire.^[12]

•  UK: Mentioned in dispatches (World War I)^[1]
•  UK: Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) (World War I)^[1]
•  UK: Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) (1947)^[3]
•  UK: Knight Bachelor (1953)^[3]

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Walter Fletcher