Catalogue description Frank Strauss MEYER: American. Described by one Oxford University communist contemporary...

Frank Strauss MEYER: American. Described by one Oxford University communist contemporary as 'The founder of the student Communist Party movement in the UK'. Formerly a Princetown alumnus, MEYER arrived in the UK in August 1928 and matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, in October 1929. On graduating he transferred to the London School of Economics to read for a PhD, but was expelled from the LSE in March 1934 and from the country in June 1934. He was founder and first President of the Communist Front organisation the 'October Club', a member of the committee of the Oxford University Labour Club, founder of the propagandist 'Student Vanguard' and, at LSE President of the Marxist Society and of the students union. John CORNFORD, a prime mover in the establishment of student communism at Cambridge in the 1930s was a protege at the LSE. From his return to the USA in 1934 until 1945 when he converted to Catholicism MEYER was active in student-related communist affairs. He appeared as a witness before the Subversive Activities Control Board in 1952