Malcolm Muggeridge

Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (24 March 1903 – 14 November 1990), known as Malcolm Muggeridge, was a British journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he worked for the British government as a soldier and a spy. As a young man, Muggeridge was a left-wing sympathiser but he later became a forceful anti-communist. He is credited with bringing Mother Teresa to popular attention in the West and stimulating debate about Catholic theology. In his later years he became a religious and moral campaigner.

Early life and career

Muggeridge's father, Henry (known as H. T. Muggeridge), served as a prominent Labour Party councillor in the local government of Croydon, South London, as a founder-member of the Fabian Society, and as a Labour Member of Parliament for Romford (1929–1931, during Ramsay MacDonald's second Labour government). His mother was Annie Booler.

The middle of five brothers, Muggeridge was born in Sanderstead, Surrey, and grew up in Croydon and attended Selhurst High School there, and then Selwyn College, Cambridge for four years. While still a student he had taught for brief periods in 1920, 1922 and 1924 at the John Ruskin Central School, Croydon, where his father was Chairman of the Governors. After graduating in 1924 with a pass degree in natural sciences he went to India to teach English Literature.