Britain’s then Prime Minister Clement Attlee, with the chiefs of MI6 security service and Buckingham Palace aides, conspired to cover up one of the last scandals of the British Empire involving the theft of charity funds by one of its governors posted in India, papers in the UK’s National Archives have revealed.

Sir Arthur Hope, who served as the Governor of Madras Presidency between 1940 and 1946, had been entrusted with donations to the Indian Red Cross. But in 1944, the British establishment became aware of his mounting gambling debts which led him to also misappropriate the funds intended for the charity, The Times reported. The money he was thought to have siphoned off to settle his debts added up to £40,000 at the time.

According to the correspondence documents unearthed in the archives, when word reached Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India at the time, that some of Hope’s creditors in India wanted their money back, the British decided that the governor must be quietly removed from office.

A doctor’s note was produced claiming that Sir Arthur, who was then 48, had “tropical neurasthenia”, a diagnosis commonly given to white Europeans who disliked the colonial climate and wanted to go home. However, it was feared if he stepped down while still in India, he could be sued and arrested over his debts before boarding a ship for England. The UK government was unable to sue him without exposing “the delinquencies of the King’s representative”, noted Sir David Monteath, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India and Burma.

In 1947, the year India gained its independence, Attlee approved a donation to the Indian Red Cross using British taxpayers’ money, leaving people unaware it came from the government in London.

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