W Somerset Maugham writer spy ambulance volunteer

Red Cross interpreter and ambulance driver W. Somerset Maugham lived a life of love, intrigue, creativity and service to others.

William Somerset Maugham was born on 25 January 1874 in Paris and educated in England and Germany.

A qualified physician, Maugham found success throughout his life as a writer, known for his novels including ‘Of Human Bondage’ and ‘The Razor’s Edge’, and as a playwright.

Maugham was too old to be in the armed services at the start of World War 1 in 1914. A patriotic man who still wanted to play his part, he decided to join the Red Cross as an interpreter and arrived at the Red Cross station in Boulogne, France in October 1914.

Red Cross ambulance driver

Finding that ambulance drivers were in higher demand than interpreters, Maughan trained as a driver. He was moved out almost at once to transport wounded from the field to the casualty clearing-stations just behind the frontlines.

Maugham and other volunteers were frequently required to go on the field of battle, sometimes under fire to pick up casualties. Often the call came at night and a convoy of ambulances would need to make its way without headlights, relying on the light from flares and the flash of guns to help them avoid shell holes as they drove.

As well as driving the ambulances Maughan also assisted in the hospitals when needed, cleaning wounds and applying bandages.

The first motorised ambulances to transport wounded people were used in the World War 1.

Boulogne, where Maugham joined the Red Cross volunteers, was the site of the Red Cross ambulance garage. From October 1914 and during the first battle of Ypres, hospital trains of wounded men would arrive to be transferred to hospitals in the city.

During the war, the Boulogne ambulance convoys transported 1,823,458 sick and wounded men.

Learn more about the 90,000 people who volunteered for the British Red Cross during the First World War, and search the digital archives on our Voluntary Aid Detachment website.

A photo of a group of soldiers during World War 1 helping eachother though mud towards an ambulance

A life of travel and love

Throughout his life Maugham had relationships with men and women. In 1914 he began an affair with Syrie Wellcome, an interior decorator, who later became his wife in 1917. He left the Red Cross ambulance unit in 1915 to return to England to be reunited with a pregnant Syrie.

Through his relationship with Syrie, Maugham met Major John Wallinger, an officer of the Secret Service Bureau, now known as MI6. One night, over dinner, Maugham was offered a job as an SSB agent in Geneva. His role was to co-ordinate British agents in Germany and send the information they received back to London.

A black and white photo of Maugham taken from a newspaper showing him looking at the camera smoking a pipe.

While with the Red Cross, Maugham met an American Red Cross volunteer Gerald Haxton, who became his lover and companion for the next 30 years.

The cold winters in Geneva had affected his lungs and, advised that a tropical climate would do him good, Maugham travelled to Tahiti. He was accompanied by Haxton, acting as his secretary.

They travelled together often and later, around the time of his divorce from Syrie in 1929, Maugham and Haxton lived together in a villa on the French Riviera.

His relationship with Haxton was the most enduring of his life. They continued to live together up until Haxton’s death in 1944.

Maugham told his nephew, Robin, "You'll never know how great a grief this has been to me. The best years of my life – those we spent wandering about the world – are inextricably connected with him. And in one way or another – however indirectly – all I've written during the last twenty years has something to do with him".