George McMahon (failed assassin)
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George Andrew Campbell McMahon (d. 1970), also known as Jerome Bannigan, was famous for an incident in Hyde Park, London in 1936, when he threw a revolver at King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom.
McMahon was reportedly Irish by birth and a fraudster.
Early activities
During the early 1930s, McMahon attracted attention by making allegations, without any evidence, against a range of groups, including: Irish Republicans, whom McMahon claimed in 1935 were plotting to ship weapons to the Irish Free State for anti-British activities; fascist spies operating from the Italian embassy in London; Communist plots to assassinate against prominent figures, including Edward VIII; disseminating anti-semitic literature and; letters published in the Communist newspaper Daily Worker.[citation needed]
By the mid-1930s McMahon was reportedly under surveillance by the Security Service (later MI5).[citation needed]
1936 incident
On 16 July 1936, as Edward VIII rode through Hyde Park, following the Colour ceremony, McMahon produced a revolver.
Bystanders and members of the Metropolitan Police reportedly subdued McMahon, after a struggle, during which the unfired revolver fell near the king's carriage as it continued down Constitution Hill.
McMahon later stated that he was protesting the failure of authorities such as the Home Secretary to respond to McMahon's reports of a plot to kill the king. He also claimed to have been working with the Security Service.
He was subsequently sentenced to 12 months imprisonment and hard labor on 14 September 1936.
Later activities
In November 1939, following the outbreak of the Second World War, McMahon claimed to have had a personal audience the previous year with senior Nazi official Julius Streicher. McMahon offered to pass on information from that meeting to British authorities.
The following year, he began sending letters, using apparently official War Office letterheads, containing antisemitic remarks. These included personal attacks on then-Minister of War Leslie Hore-Belisha.
Following the end of the war and until as late as 1951, McMahon was reportedly still under surveillance by MI5, which reportedly intercepted a letter from McMahon to British fascist leader Oswald Mosley.[citation needed]