Percy Glading

Percy Eded Glading ( 29 November 1893 – 15 April 1970) was an English communist and a co-founder of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). He was also a trade union activist, an author, and a spy for the Soviet Union against Britain, an activity for which he was convicted and imprisoned.

Glading, who was born in Wanstead and grew up in East London, left school early to find work. Starting with menial jobs such as delivering milk, he found skilled work at the Stratford marshalling yards. Later, he worked as an engineer at the Royal Arsenal, which was then the national production centre for military materiel. Glading spent World War I at the Arsenal, and after the war, he chose to involve himself in working-class politics. He joined the forerunner of the CPGB, which he later founded with his friend Harry Pollitt and others.

Glading was a national organiser for the CPGB and acted as its ambassador abroad, particularly to India. He was active in other groups, such as the National Minority Movement, and when he married, his wife, Elizabeth, joined him in his political activity. He was prominent in the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU), but his political activity resulted in dismissal from the Royal Arsenal, a security-sensitive post, as the government regularly dismissed those suspected of subversive activities from its employment. MI5 opened a file on him in 1925 and considered him an extreme communist. The OGPU and its successor, the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) kept in touch with him through a series of handlers (including Arnold Deutsch, who later recruited Kim Philby).

Around 1934, Soviet Intelligence recruited Glading as a spy. Although he no longer worked at the Arsenal, he had maintained contact with men of similar sympathies who still did so. The Arsenal was of interest to the Soviets, who knew that Britain was on the verge of creating the biggest naval gun yet. Glading had set up a safe house in Holland Park, West London, where he photographed various sensitive plans and blueprints. Unbeknown to him, the secret service had infiltrated the CPGB in 1931, with an agent known later as "Miss X"—Olga Gray. Glading trusted her and involved her in his espionage activities and lodged her in the Holland Park safe house.

He was eventually arrested in January 1938 in the act of exchanging sensitive material from the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. Predominantly due to the testimony of "Miss X", Glading was found guilty and sentenced to six years of hard labour.

On his release from prison near the end of World War II, he is reported to have found work in a factory and maintained close links with Pollitt and the CPGB. Glading died in Richmond on 15 April 1970 at 76.

## Early life

Percy Glading was born in Wanstead, Essex on 29 November 1893. He later described his youth as being "the usual joys experienced by hundreds of poor proletarian families". His father worked on the railways, and Glading grew up in Henniker Road, Stratford, near the marshalling yards. According to his obituary, Glading distributed a radical paper, Justice, around the East End in his last years of school. He left school aged 12 to work as a milkman and two years later he joined the railways as a trainee engineer. He spent World War I employed as a grinder at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. This was an extensive government-run military-industrial complex supplying weapons and munitions to the Army and Royal Navy. In 1914 he was involved in a stoppage against blackleg working at the arsenal. He worked as an engineer in Belfast for Harland and Wolff in 1921 and was periodically unemployed.

A 2017 biography of Olga Gray's handler, Maxwell Knight, described Glading as having "thick lips" and "lank hair". He "wore large round glasses that made him look like an overgrown schoolboy" but was "quick-witted and likeable".

## Early career

In 1925 he moved from grinding at the Arsenal to the Naval Department as a gun examiner. By now he was known to the security services. On 10 October the same year, Glading was best man at Harry Pollitt's wedding to Marjorie Brewer in Caxton Hall. They were good friends, and had holidayed together in St Malo the previous year (where Pollitt had first met her). Glading and Pollitt's colleague in the CPGB—and later the latter's biographer—wrote of their escapades in St Malo. Pollitt, says Mahon, borrowed an expensive-looking watch from Glading to make an impression on Brewer: "In later years", wrote Mahon, "when [Pollitt] had come off second best in a tiff with Marjorie, who always had a mind of her own, he would say to Percy, 'It's all your fault for lending me that bloody watch'."

Glading and Pollitt had been among the founders of the CPGB, Pollitt was to be its General Secretary between 1929 and 1939 and from 1941 to 1956. When it was founded, there had been a proposal that a triumvirate composed of Willie Gallacher, David Proudfoot, and Percy Glading act as CPGB leadership; in the event, a single general secretary was appointed.

Glading was elected to the CPGB's Central Committee in January 1927. Politically, he was on the left wing of the Committee following the 1926 general strike and the Party's subsequent period of self-reflection. Glading consistently pushed for a more independent communist line (independent, that is, from the Comintern). In January 1929, Glading and Pollitt were in the minority over the question of the progressive (or otherwise) nature of the Labour Party. Then, in July 1928, when it discussed the further question of affiliation to it, extant minutes of this meeting show the members as being split down the middle, nine for and nine against: Glading was in favour of the motion. Harry Wicks, in his autobiography, later described Glading, Pollitt and himself as being consistently "on the left within the party, thoroughly dissatisfied with what they saw as the right-wing actions of its CentraI Committee". In May 1929, he was appointed a factory member of the CPGB's Political Bureau, although his tenure was to be brief.

Both Glading and his wife, Elizabeth, were high-profile communists and labour activists in the inter-war period. As well as being a party member, Glading was an active trade unionist and shop steward in the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the Red International of Labour Unions. Glading printed and distributed the CPGB's paper, Soldier's Voice, and was assistant head of the CPGB's Organisation Bureau. Glading's MI5 file had been opened in 1922, and consisted of "notes on his official activities, intercepted correspondence and accounts of his movements". At this stage, though, there was nothing particularly compromising about his behaviour. It was his links to the communist agitator James Messer which drew him to the attention of MI5, as Messer was part of the Kirchenstein circle. This was an undercover courier network which relayed diplomatic, political and security secrets to Russia, and had resulted in the Arcos scandal of March 1927. Kevin Quinlan says this led to suspicions that Glading was a "conduit for the Comintern in the early part of his career". MI5 described him as "a red-hot communist", and as one of the party's "most influential members" of the period. Through his CPGB activities Glading had by now been recruited as a spy for Russia, through whom all espionage reports travelled to Moscow and to whom all funds were sent for distribution.

### Indian expedition

In 1925 Glading was the first member of the CPGB to travel to India—under the pseudonym Robert Cochrane—pushing the CPGB policy of promoting revolution in Britain's colonies. Arriving on 30 January, he visited various cities and met individuals who were later to be central to the Meerut Conspiracy Case. This occurred in 1929 when a number of Indian men—all members of the Communist Party of India, then an illegal organisation—were arrested and tried for organising a railway strike there in 1925. They were charged with conspiring to form a branch of the Comintern in India and overthrow the government. Robinson says Glading saw their trial as violating the men's "fundamental civil liberties"—particularly as the group had to wait over two years to even be brought to trial—and that this made them "the final justification for the eventual overthrow of the ruling class" in India. Glading had been arrested along with M. N. Roy (who has been described by William E. Duff as a "paid Comintern agitator") and fifty-six other men, but, there being insufficient evidence to hold him, was released. The Indians were less successful and had to wait three or four years before their case even came up. It has been suggested that Roy both opposed Glading's expedition and had been irritated by it, as he believed that the CPGB had opened and read the letters they had promised to pass to Roy.

Glading's original purpose in India, on behalf of the CPGB, was seeking to forge links with Roy as well as to study Indian working conditions specifically and more generally to promote the Communist Party. Nigel West says Glading was unimpressed by the efforts of the Indian Communist Party to organise the workers. Indian Political Intelligence noted that Glading had particularly focussed his attention on "shipyards, munitions works, dockyards and arsenals where strike committees or 'Red Cells' existed". Rajani Palme Dutt, in Glading's 1970 obituary, reported that Glading was eventually "deported under the authority of the Viceroy". Covert journeys to India such as these were common for the CPGB during this period. Pollitt was to persuade Olga Gray to make such a trip in 1934 to transfer funds from Glading to the Indian communist movement. She left England on 11 June 1934 and met Glading in Paris to receive the money and instructions. On her return, Glading obtained work for Gray as Pollitt's secretary.

### Return from India

`Based on his experiences in India, Glading wrote articles for The Labour Monthly and produced two books: India Under British Terror in 1931, and The Meerut Conspiracy Case two years later. The first he self-published; the CPGB published the second. Glading left India on 10 April 1925. He returned to Britain by way of Amsterdam, where, in July 1925, he presented the results of his studies to a communist conference that was taking place. R.W. Robson later reported how`

> On Saturday morning I met two trains arriving from Flushing, expecting to intercept Glading and others who were to be present at the Conference, but as they did not arrive I again visited the contact address and discovered that Glading, Dutt and Uphadyaya were already there, having arrived by an early train and gone to the meeting place immediately.

Also attending the conference were M. N. Roy and his wife, Henk Sneevliet, Gertrude Hessler, N. J. Uphadayaya, Clemens Dutt and R. W. Robson, also of the CPGB. Glading reported that "no Indian Communist groups existed at all", and that those he had met "were useless". Roy disputed this. He claimed that Glading had not encountered any Indian communists because they were unsure whether to make themselves known to him. Conversely, Glading believed he had found a communications problem between Indian communists and those aiding the movement from the outside.

## Later career

Glading returned to Britain from the continent in 1927. He soon joined one of the most pro-Soviet English trade unions of the day, the National Minority Movement (NMM), and became a national organiser for the group. Along with another communist and fellow NMM organiser, Joe Scott, Glading launched the Members' Rights Movement at the Engineers' Rank and File Movement local conference in Yorkshire. This was a caucus within the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) which rejected a national pay settlement in 1931 and urged the formation of workers' councils in the workplace. Unfortunately for Glading, five months later, one member observed that the organisation "has not been heard of since". Further, Glading and Scott were expelled from the AEU for condemning their union's national leadership.

Back at Woolwich Arsenal, he again took up his post as an examiner in the naval ordnance department. Glading's career back at Woolwich was short lived. Following the Invergordon Mutiny, the government mandated that those employed in security-sensitive roles should have their political backgrounds examined. Those who were found to have subversive ideas had to renounce them or lose their jobs. Glading's politically motivated trip to India was uncovered when Guy Liddell cross-referenced the names of known communists with positions of sensitive employment. Special Branch wanted him sacked as soon as possible; Glading was thus in the latter group. In 1928, he and others were dismissed for "refusing to renounce their communist beliefs" and, at least in Glading's case, for being an agitator. He demanded of his Inspector what right the man had to impose "political fitness" on Arsenal employees.

Glading appealed to his trade union for support, and the AEU brought the matter to the attention of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). They spent the next four months pursuing his case against Royal Arsenal management. Efforts included discussions with Labour MPs in parliament and barraging Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin with demands that he personally overturn the sacking. However, Baldwin did not intervene, the Labour Party did not raise it in parliament, and Glading did not get his job back. But says Jennifer Luff of the case, "TUC leaders had defended the civil liberties of a communist member" openly. The CPGB was active too, releasing a manifesto denouncing what they described as Glading's victimisation. In this, they claimed the company's actions to be merely the precursor of ridding naval and military installations of proletarian militancy. The CPGB took the opportunity to denounce "capitalist exploitation and prais[e] class war". Glading's case became a cause célèbre and made national headlines. Glading, too, roundly denounced the Arsenal for their treatment of him:

> I refuse to renounce my beliefs or membership of the Communist Party. I did not adopt my present political views lightly or thoughtlessly, but after deep study and considerable experience of working-class life ... I was not aware that the Admiralty employed Communists, Labourists, Liberals, and Tories, but engineers and craftsmen, and that the test was fitness for the job.

Following his dismissal from Woolwich in 1928, Glading got a job with Russian Oil Products Ltd (ROP). It had been founded three years earlier by the Russian government to enable it to market its oil resources directly to the West. Although primarily a trading organisation, it also provided the opportunity to transmit back to Moscow any industrial and scientific intelligence its staff obtained. In 1929, Glading was promoted to the CPGB's London politburo and immediately left for Russia under the name James Brownlie. In Moscow he studied at the Lenin School for a year. This was the Comintern's training school, where Glading and other pupils were taught ideology and tradecraft. Glading's obituary, written later by Rajani Dutt, made no mention of the Lenin School, reporting that he spent "a year in the Soviet Union where he witnessed the great agrarian changeover from individual petty-bourgeoise holdings to collective farming". Following his graduation, Glading came under the aegis of the International Liaison Department (Comintern) (OMS); this has been described by Sakmyster as "the most secret department" of the Comintern, specialising in "the coordination of subversive and conspiratorial activities" abroad.

Glading returned to Britain in 1930, where he began working for the CPGB's colonial department. Based in a top-floor office at 23 Great Ormond Street, he was the Soviet link between ROP and the CPGB. He served as a cut-out, communicating information between agents. He paid regular visits to the CPGB head office at 16 King Street, in London's Covent Garden.

Historian Richard Davenport-Hines says there was "nothing stealthy about his allegiance" to his chosen causes. In 1930 he became a full-time paid officer for the League Against Imperialism (LAI), where he first encountered Olga Gray, who joined the LAI in 1932. In June 1931, Glading was suspected of personally receiving the CPGB's intelligence reports from its various espionage groups and being the individual responsible for sending them to the USSR. Some of Glading's pro-Soviet activities were undertaken with his wife, who shared his political outlook. She too, for example, had links with the Kirchenstein circle. Another of Glading's associates was Jessie Ayriss, who was married to George Hardy, a fellow member of the Communist Party; Ayriss herself was employed as a typist at the Soviet embassy from 1937 to 1944. Espionage expert Nigel West has suggested she may have acted as a courier for Glading.

### Recruitment by Moscow

In the post-World War One period, an upsurge in communist activity in British industry, particularly in armaments and munitions factories led to employers in these sectors beginning to lay off workers suspected of left-wing sympathies. Although the CPGB had been of interest to the security services from its foundation, MI5's information on its activities had been confined to surveillance and technical data. When surveillance uncovered what they believed to be a "more sinister cadre" within the CPGB, MI5 infiltrated it with undercover agents. From the late 1920s, the OGPU—and from 1934 its successor agency the NKVD—were active in Britain. Recent scholarship has suggested that their rezidentura were the single biggest threat to British security during the interwar period. As well as Glading's ring, Nigel West says that John Herbert King was "haemorrhaging" information from the Foreign and Colonial Office. Farnborough RAF base had been penetrated by its own spy network, and Kim Philby and Donald Maclean had been recruited. London, comments West, "had become a veritable centre of Soviet espionage". Meanwhile, MI5 at full strength had a complement of only 26 agents at the beginning of 1938.

MI5 believed that it was in the mid-1930s that Glading turned his attention from "domestic subversion to international espionage". The KGB's own files state that Ignaty Reif had recruited him by June 1934. He may have felt, as others did, that to be a "good communist" one should "carry out intelligence work which strengthened the USSR". Either way, the first indication that Glading was shifting his focus came in 1936 when he resigned from the CPGB. Like Glading, all his agents were either present or ex-members of the CPGB. Unlike most Soviet agents, Glading did not have a cover job; nor did he organise a cover story. John Curry, in the official history of MI5, notes that Glading—indeed, all Soviet CPGB recruits—effectively ceased all party activity from the point that they were recruited. These were effectively "fake resignations" (and, indeed, were described as such later by Pollitt himself, who was almost certainly aware of Glading's espionage career). The Soviets gave him the codename "GOT", and named their "G" Group—based in Copenhagen—after him. Historian David Burke says it seems likely that the Woolwich spy ring was created by the NKVD to gain possession of a top-secret large naval gun that the Arsenal was believed to be researching. Glading had been informed of these plans—of which only five copies were ever made—at some time in 1935 by contacts in the War Office and Admiralty: Glading's mission was to report on the gun's arrival at Woolwich and obtain an example.

Glading was the subject of frequent covert surveillance operations. On one such occasion in July 1936, he was observed at Cambridge Circus meeting up with Charles Moody. Much of Glading's operation at this time would have been concerned with the on-going deadlock at the Montreux Convention, at which Britain, France, Italy and the Soviet Union disputed their proposed access to the Black Sea with Turkey. At the same time, a faction within the government led by Sir Samuel Hoare was urging for swift British re-armament, and claiming, Hoare said, that Russian re-armament made the Royal Navy look a "mere bagatelle". Doubtless, says Davenport-Hines, Glading and Moody went to a pub, having much to discuss in the "implicit threats to Soviet security being revealed at Montreux and Southampton".

In 1936, Glading was asked to vouchsafe for Theodore Maly and Arnold Deutsch, both "top class" Comintern recruiters. Maly was a Hungarian ex-priest and Deutsch an Austrian Communist, and they had been tasked with recruiting a Foreign Office civil servant, John Cairncross. Maly and Deutsch requested the assistance of James Klugmann—then living in Paris—later an important asset for Soviet Intelligence within the Special Operations Executive (SOE) who was acquainted with Cairncross. But Davenport-Hines says Klugmann refused to meet them, "until they had been endorsed by a CPGB member whom he trusted". That man was Glading, who travelled to Paris and vouched for the KGB men; Cairncross was soon recruited.

Glading maintained a network of contacts from when he worked at the Arsenal, such as George Whomack (an assistant foreman of the Works), Charles Munday (an assistant chemist at the Royal Arsenal), and Albert Williams (an examiner in the Inspectorate of Armaments Department), all of whom later provided him with secret material and blueprints. Glading's group was one of two active in England in the early 1930s; little is known of the other but it is thought to have been associated—as Glading himself had been—around the Russian Oil Products front.

In January 1937, after Maly's recall, Glading was summoned to meet Maly's successor as controller of the Royal Arsenal ring. This was Mikhail Borovoy, a member of the OGPU's Technical Section, who was travelling with his wife under false Canadian passports (as Willy and Mary Brandes) and had arrived in London in October 1936. They lived in Forset Court off the Edgware Road. With Maly the Soviets' resident spy, the Brandes' were to act independently of the rezidentura and deal specifically with the Soviets' special assets: the Cambridge (and, to a lesser extent, Oxford) spy ring. To Glading they went under the names "Mr and Mrs Stevens", but they only stayed in London a few weeks before making their way to Paris. In that time, Glading met them at Forset Court. This in itself was a "highly unusual step" according to William Duff but essential in assessing the material Glading expected to collect and the resources he needed to do so.[^1] They also met Glading's agent within Royal Arsenal, George Whomack, and photographed some secret documents in the Holland Road safe house. Glading and the Stevens also received blueprints from George Whomack in Hyde Park. Mrs Stevens, who was travelling in the guise of a photographer for a furniture company, assisted with the photography during their stay. It was immediately after Glading met the Brandes that he instructed Olga Gray to find a suitable flat or apartment (for example, he specified that there should be no porter to espy their comrades' comings and goings). Glading's operation at Woolwich consisted of George Whomack smuggling out blueprints at the end of a late shift—past military police guards—on the day the document had been released to the arsenal. Around this time Glading told Gray that he was "doing hardly any work for the party now, it is mostly for other people".

### 82 Holland Road

The MI5 mole, Olga Gray did not discover his spying for several years. In 1937, she assisted Glading to purchase the ground-floor flat at 82, Holland Road in West London. MI5 likely enabled the sale. The CPGB paid Glading the flat's annual £100 annual rent (), and he paid Gray the monthly instalments to settle herself. Glading also provided £60 to buy furniture on hire purchase, including a gateleg table for their large-scale photography work. Three sets of keys were cut, of which Glading kept two. During his later prosecution, Gray described some of the activities that went on. The team focussed on photography—which Glading told her was of "a very secret nature"—and began extensive testing (on local bus maps) with home-made cameras to make the end product as clear to their Russian recipients as possible. Glading saw Gray as a valuable member of his team: in May 1937, he suggested she give up her job, take a professional photography course, and work for him in the flat full-time. In return, he offered to make up her salary to five pounds a week; Gray accepted, although she was worried that she knew far too little of photography to be of much use; Glading reassured her. He also paid for her to take a holiday which she took at the end of June. Gray was expected to reside at the flat, and Glading promised her that he would only arrive by appointment. On 11 October 1937, Glading instructed Gray to replace the gateleg table with a refectory table as the former had turned out not to be strong enough to bear the weight of the equipment. In the event, Glading bought one himself from Maple & Co. four days later, and it was installed on the 17th.

During their tenure in London, the Stevens' were regular visitors to the flat. Mr Stevens was often deep in discussion with Glading while Mrs Stevens assisted Gray with the photography. Gray also met other acquaintances of Glading's at the flat. For example, in April that year, she met a Mr Peters, whom Glading told her had been "an Austrian who had served during the War in the Russian cavalry". Peters was sometimes accompanied by a colleague; MI5 later identified them as Maly and Deutsch. Glading, Gray said later, found Deutsch an unpleasant individual; Glading told her that he had to tolerate Deutsch "for business reasons". Deutsch had run the Soviet spy network in England since February 1934, and Glading began introducing other people to him for recruitment (in one case, a father, swiftly followed by his son). Throughout this time the flat was under occasional observation by the secret service; Glading could spend hours in the flats and sometimes as little as twenty minutes, often bringing Gray with him and then leaving her there.

John Curry's Official History of MI5 describes how Glading would receive various important blueprints which he would photograph at Holland Road, and return the same night. Gray, who was responsible for the photography, was to take and develop the photographs, but not to print the negatives. When the house was later searched, it was found to contain a camera, aircraft bomb plans, and even an anti-tank mine. Glading did not live far from Holland Road himself, having purchased a "salubrious" new development in South Harrow.

### Photographic work

In November 1937 the Brandes were recalled to Moscow, supposedly for family reasons. By now, Glading was "running out of money and patience". Glading told Gray on 17 January that he would be reduced to borrowing money to fund the operation, "if something did not happen within a week or so". Until the Brandes' replacements arrived, Glading could not send any of the material which his agents had passed to him. As for money, Brandes had left him with the best part of £300 to finance operations before he left. But this had to run out at some point, especially as Glading had been instructed to purchase gifts for all his agents and contacts, presumably as a means of keeping them in touch. This further irritated Glading. This was a large number of people, many of whom he already considered as little more than mercenaries. Glading had also been instructed to take at least one of them out for lunch—"a fine figure of a woman", he told Gray, "who had done her best to impress him with her beauty, without success"—and whom he hated. Glading took such a dim view of her—and of his having to reward her—because, as he put it, she only did "about one job in five years". She could not be ignored, however, as she "knew enough to be nasty".

Gray later said Glading was becoming anxious; work seemed to have dried up after the naval gun affair. On at least one occasion around this time, Gray said Glading arrived at the flat drunk and jittery. She also reported his detached attitude towards the recall—and presumed execution—of their controllers. "These blokes", Glading had observed to her, "live on a volcano the whole time they are over here, and when they do go home you do not know if they will ever come back". Also, she said, Glading was keen to "continue to practice with the photographic apparatus to perfect their technique as he did not like being dependent on the vagaries of foreigners". It was his lack of trust in Brandes' competence that led him to place so much reliance on Gray's newly-learned skills.

Glading was probably attempting to keep the cell operating under his own aegis. Yet, aspects of Gray's report suggest that Glading was himself insufficiently trained to do such specialised work. His attempts to keep the cell made him a "liability", according to David Burke. The reason he gave Gray for wanting to take the camera from Holland Road to South Harrow was that his own camera was the wrong size for the stand, and he had had to balance it "on a pile of books".

Glading's operations within the Arsenal were extremely risky, due to its high-security status and his own impatience. He no longer had the Russians supporting him which also increased his chances of capture. Robinson has described him as "somewhat of an over-zealous renegade who, at times, needed to be reined in by his superiors". In November 1937, the CPGB Secretariat wrote to him asking him to reconsider his earlier resignation and re-join the party "of which you were such an active member". Burke suggests that, far from being a solicitous invitation to reconnect with old comrades in struggle, it was "little more than an instruction to sever connections with the 'secret' party and to re-join the 'open' party".

By the end of 1937, a provisional case against Glading had been established. MI5 knew of his interest in the fourteen-inch heavy naval gun that was now in production at the Royal Arsenal, and that Whomack was removing the blueprints for it and bringing them to Holland Road for copying. The copying was done by Stevens in 42 exposures on the evening of 21 October 1937, and then the blueprint was returned over night or the next day. Although the men could be searched by the Arsenal's security on entry, even the simple expedient of folding the plans between a folded-up newspaper was sufficient to avoid detection on at least one occasion. Olga Gray, says Davenport-Hines, brewed a pot of tea for the group "while the films were hung in the bathroom to dry". Gray was later able—by standing on the edge of the bath—to surreptitiously note down the serial numbers of the pieces of blueprint. In November, Glading removed the camera to his own house in South Harrow. The following January, Glading informed Gray he had a major operation coming up. This was the copying, not just of a blueprint, but a 200-page manual. For this purpose, the security services laid on extra watchers at Glading's house, where the work was to take place. It began on 15 January; it must have been completed overnight, as the following day, Glading was observed taking a package to Charing Cross station. Meeting Charles Munday in the public lavatory, they adjourned to a nearby restaurant where the handover took place.

### Capture

After a seven-year operation, Olga Gray set Glading up for arrest. On 20 January he telephoned Gray at the safe house, asking her to meet him the next day. Glading took Gray out to lunch at the Windsor Castle bar to discuss a "significant" operation he had planned for 82 Holland Road that same night. He had brought a suitcase with him; she was to be at the safe house by 6:00 PM. William Duff quotes Glading as telling Gray that Glading had "got the stuff parked all over London"—negatives of blueprints he kept at various locations—and that he mentioned a pre-arranged meeting with someone that evening, again at Charing Cross. This was the cue the security services had been waiting for. Gray telephoned MI5 and duly reported what Glading had told her.

That evening, 21 January 1938, Glading was tailed to the station yard. MI5 did not have the necessary statutory powers to perform arrests, and had briefed Special Branch to do so. This took place almost immediately. Inspector Thomas Thompson (of the Special Branch) observed Glading receive an envelope which was later discovered to contain blueprints. The suitcase in his possession was found to have a false bottom; it was thought that this was the means by which plans were smuggled out of the Arsenal. The man he received it from—Albert Williams—was also arrested. The envelope was found to contain a blueprint of some pressurized machinery under development at the Arsenal. When the police searched Williams' flat, photographic equipment was found. Whomack, who lived in East London, was arrested the following week. Williams believed that their capture was mainly due to Glading's recklessness which led him to take insufficient precautions.

Glading and Williams were taken to Scotland Yard, where the package they had been caught exchanging was opened in front of them: it contained four blueprints for a pressure-bar apparatus. Glading and his companions were charged under Section 1, sub-section C of the 1911 Official Secrets Act. A search of Glading's home revealed cameras, exposures of blueprints, and a photographic film of 1925's Manual of Explosives textbook. Also found was a diary. This—described by McKnight as "cryptic, though decipherable"—revealed that Glading was "less than thorough" in his tradecraft. One diary entry the secret service was unable to crack made a reference to Melita Sirnis, who later revealed British nuclear secrets to the Soviets. Glading's diary listed not only her name, but her family home in Hampstead. Another made reference to Edith Tudor-Hart. Along with the explosives manual on film, they also found blueprints for a new aircraft design. Although Glading had been careful to wear gloves whenever he used the camera at Holland Road, he had slipped up once when he changed a lightbulb: this was all that the police needed. Chief Inspector Birch of Scotland Yard found fingerprints with a microscope, as he later told the press.

Imprisoned before trial, it is possible that he confessed his leading role in the organisation to a fellow inmate, although doubt has been cast on whether the Woolwich spy ring was ever big enough to warrant a strict hierarchy of its own.

Olga Gray, although she was able to give her evidence at Glading's trial anonymously, had been "terrified" at the prospect. Hennessey and Thomas have argued that, at this point, "the reality of her role struck home: that she had effectively destroyed a man who had trusted her implicitly and of whom she had become extremely fond".

## Trial

The case proved to be something of a cause célèbre in both Britain and the United States. The press described the protagonists in florid terms: Gray was—supposedly—of aristocratic lineage, who "had forgotten more about courage than many soldiers ever learned on the battlefield". Glading meanwhile was made out to be "dark, distinguished, suave...a reader of poetry and a dreamer of revolt under high scarlet banners".

Hearings began in late January and continued into March 1938, some of which were held in camera for security reasons. This excluded the press. The CPGB, through the Daily Worker, "remained tongue-tied" over it: "only a sanitised report, of the trial, devoid of comment appeared in the paper" on 13 March.

What was reported, however, had the side effect of drawing the general public's attention towards the issue of Soviet espionage. On day two of Glading's trial, for example, a welder who had seen anti-fascist agitator Geoffrey Pyke in the AEU offices (and "in very frequent communication with Glading") went to the police with what he knew. This, in turn, attracted MI5's attention to Pyke, whom for a time they believed to be the "Mr Stevens" who visited Holland Road. Although politically to the left, Pyke would be a significant figure in Britain's black ops and propaganda divisions against Nazi Germany within a few years. Later that same March, an insurance broker, who had also visited Pyke at AEU headquarters, reported similar suspicions to the police. Both men had been prompted by Glading's capture and trial to make their accusations.

Glading was charged on various counts of obtaining secrets for, and betraying secrets to, a foreign power. With Whomack, he was charged with possessing a naval plan; with Williams, obtaining an anti-tank mine pistol and of procuring information of use to an enemy; with Munday, Glading was charged with obtaining information on explosives. Other charges facing him were possession of an anti-tank mine pistol, obtaining plans for a submarine mine fuse, and other plans "calculated to be useful to an enemy". Ironically, in case anyone was in any doubt as to the importance placed upon the naval gun, the Attorney General, questioned by the Judge, emphasised its significance in open court. The precise nature of Britain's enemy was never made clear, being only referred to as a "foreign power". The reportage made it clear that the Soviet Union was almost certainly the culprit.

Glading's Old Bailey trial took place only two months after his arrest; this, says Robinson, is testament to how "clear-cut" the case against him was. The evidence presented included "a mass of incriminating documents and photographic material". Glading pled guilty. His solicitors, instructed by the CPGB, were Denis Pritt, leading, and assisted by Dudley Collard. They—at the CPGB's request—advised him to change his plea to Not Guilty; this Glading did. But they presented little evidence in his favour and carried out only minimal cross-examination, and the defence was unable to question Gray's credibility due to her professional behaviour on the stand. The prosecution, on the other hand, consisted of some of the most well-known advocates of the day and was led by Donald Somervell. Pritt's defence of Whomack was more energetic, and he lambasted the Official Secrets Act for making it "far too easy to be charged for misdemeanour merely by wandering too close to a dockyard" or anywhere else such secret plans were kept.The trial judge, Sir Anthony Hawke, told the accused that Glading was "endeavouring to do anything [he] could to help another country and injure this. This is [his] own country but I cannot quite believe that this had any effect on your mind". The judge wondered whether, as perhaps evinced by Glading's prosperous existence, he might have profited financially from his work with Moscow and that he was motivated by money rather than ideology. Whatever his motive, the outcome was never in doubt. On 14 March 1938, Glading received a sentence of six years' imprisonment (hard labour). Williams was sentenced to four years, Whomack to three. Munday's charges were withdrawn by the prosecution. Duff argues it is possible that this was the result of his making a deal with MI5 to turn king's evidence and reveal the tradecraft of Glading's operation at the Royal Arsenal. Even the others, comments MI5's official historian, received "light sentences by the later standards of espionage trials". This may well have been quid pro quo for pleading guilty and avoiding the need for a full prosecution.

### Aftermath

The Woolwich spy ring has been used as an example of the patience of early Soviet spymasters in creating and providing for their networks. The case showed, for example, how "Soviet intelligence did not possess a monopoly of 'sleepers' and 'moles' permeating targets", and was a "significant, if limited" MI5 success. The case exposed a concrete connection between the CPGB and Soviet espionage. It had the negative consequence (for the service), however, of reinforcing the erroneous notion that the CPGB was the most dangerous security threat of the period, and that members of the party were all willing tools of the NKVD. According to Richard Thurlow, this meant that the idea that "Soviet moles and secret communists could be recruited into the governing class from British universities was not considered as a plausible possibility in the 1930s", even though it allowed the recruitment of the Cambridge Five. Thurlow has also described the Glading case as an example of how MI5 could, on the one hand, successfully penetrate a subversive organisation, and yet, on the other, still not understand the significance of the intelligence it received by doing so. And Glading's was not to be the last case of its kind. Less than five years later, the CPGB's national organiser Dave Springhall was also found guilty of spying for the Soviets and received seven years' imprisonment. Ultimately, Richard Thurlow says little is actually known of both the Glading Case in particular, and Soviet spy rings of the period more generally, for the simple reason that "so few files have been released".

By the time of his arrest, Glading had been responsible for the recruitment of at least eight other spies, probably all within Woolwich. To this day, however, they are known only by their codenames, and it is impossible to identify the roles they played within Glading's group. Although two of the three members arrested in the "Arsenal Spy Case" (as the papers dubbed it) were successfully prosecuted, Glading's handlers were never uncovered. NKVD operations in London were temporarily curtailed, while agents, who may have been compromised by contact with Glading—such as Melita Sirnis—were "put on ice" until their safety could be ascertained. Conversely, MI5 bizarrely failed to follow up some of the leads they had been given. On Sirnis, for example, the file that was started on her in 1938 "was soon closed without any effective consequence". Tudor-Hart, too, even though clearly (although perhaps peripherally) involved in Glading's cell, faced no effective action from the secret service. MI5's own report into the Glading affair was itself removed, copied and transmitted to Moscow in 1941 by the Soviet spy Anthony Blunt. Soviet espionage in Britain remained a priority for the security services into the next decade, culminating with the revelations of Walter Krivitsky—a defector from Soviet Military Intelligence—in 1940. Overall, the situation has been described as a "basically unequal contest". Lord Robert Cecil compared it to "an imaginary soccer match between Manchester United and Corinthian Casuals", such was the disparity between the Soviet and British security services in resources, professionalism and influence. In the context of Cecil's analogy, MI5's success in breaking up Glading's cell has been compared to a home draw for the latter against the former.

## Later life

Glading had been "deeply shocked" to learn that Gray was really an MI5 mole. He spent his imprisonment in Maidstone Gaol (Whomack and Williams were sent to Parkhurst). On at least one occasion Glading was visited by Jane Sissmore, MI5's chief debriefing officer. She was particularly interested in information that Glading possessed that may have helped prove or deny what she was learning from her then-ongoing debriefing of Walter Krivitsky. Guy Liddell, a colleague of Sissimore's in the secret service, later wrote in his diary entry for 13 October 1939:

> When interviewed Glading was rather stuffy at first but gradually, under a great deal of flattery, his own conceit got the better of him. The conversation developed on professional lines and in the end, Glading even softened towards "Miss X", when he realised that he had placed her in a very difficult position. His real grievance was with Special Branch in producing the porter at Fawcett  [sic] Court who swore that Glading had visited Brandes' flat. This he said was a lie. Otherwise, he regarded the whole business as a fair cop. He did not say anything very useful...

MI5 disagreed with the trial judge's suggestion that Glading was motivated by money. Maxwell Knight concluded that he was clearly ideologically driven, although one who "bafflingly" had an aversion to foreigners.

By the time Glading was released, Pollitt had lost his post as General Secretary to the CPGB in a split within the Central Committee, in 1939, over Stalin's rapprochement with Hitler. Little is known of Glading's life or career after his release from prison. He had become estranged from his wife at some point before his trial. Nigel West wrongly concluded that Glading was "stripped of his CPGB membership" and moved to China where he later died. Glading returned to party work as an industrial organiser on his release from prison in 1944, John Mahon makes a reference to Glading's wartime activity: Pollitt's diary entry of 6 July 1944 says that Glading "has roof and windows [bombed] out, I met him for a chat. Early this year his factory was bombed out, a man from the Air Ministry congratulated him on the way he got the workers to tackle the damage and then continue work on an urgent job in the open air".

In 1951, as "Bro. P. E. Glading", he was presented with a ceremonial copy of James George Frazer's seminal work, The Golden Bough, by the North London District Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. The book was signed by, among others, Jack Reid and Reg Birch. Likewise, if Glading went to China, it seems improbable that he died there, since the Labour Monthly—edited by Glading's old comrade from the 1925 Amsterdam conference—published an obituary to Glading in 1970. This stated that he had died on 15 April that year, at the age of 77, at his home in Surrey.

It is also not certain that the CPGB renounced all contact with Glading as West claims. There was clearly some distancing, but it has been suggested that "once the dust had settled", Henry Pollitt authorised "discreet relations" from the party to Glading. Certainly, Glading was—for the last few years of his life—on the editorial board of the Labour Monthly, which he contributed to pseudonymously. His rehabilitation within the CPGB may have been partly because there was "more than a sense of a honey trap in the case"—but also, suggests Graham Stevenson, because Glading had, after all, "been Harry's best man at his wedding". Indeed, it is quite probable that West does not know what he was talking about; as Pollitt—who was writing his autobiography whilst Glading was still imprisoned— went to the trouble of acknowledging Glading as his friend. This was in spite of the fact that Pollitt was well-known to be "extremely suspicious" of spies or anything that could incriminate him in their work. Glading's obituary, written by Rajani Dutt, omits all mention of his spying activities, merely stating that on his return from Russia, Glading "was engaged until his trial in trade union activities".

## Publications

- Glading, Percy, How Bedaux Works'' (Labour Research Department, 1932).

[^1]: Although Glading was clearly aware of the security risks that building concierges could mean for his work—when later organising his own safe house, he was emphatic that the building should not have one—as was later revealed at his trial, Forset Court almost certainly had one of its own: and this concierge was indeed a member of the secret service, as a New York Times''' report of 12 February 1938 makes clear.

English co-founder of the CPGB and Soviet spy

British people convicted of spying for the Soviet Union

Communist Party of Great Britain members


Jeddah Tower

Jeddah Tower (Arabic: برج جدة), previously known as Kingdom Tower (برج المملكة), is a skyscraper construction project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is planned to be the first 1 km (3,281 ft) tall building and would be the world's tallest building or structure upon completion, standing 180 m (591 ft) taller than the Burj Khalifa. Located in the north side of Jeddah, it is the centerpiece of the Jeddah Economic City project. The development is currently on hold.

The design, created by American architect Adrian Smith, who also designed the Burj Khalifa, incorporates many unique structural and aesthetic features. The creator and leader of the project is Saudi Arabian prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a grandson of Ibn Saud, and nephew of the Kings of Saudi Arabia after Ibn Saud. Al-Waleed is the chairman of Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), which is a partner in the Jeddah Economic Company (JEC), which was formed in 2009 for the development of Jeddah Tower and City.

Progress towards construction was halted in January 2018, when building owner JEC stopped structural concrete work; at the time, the tower was about one-third of the way completed. The development halt stemmed from labor problems with a contractor following the 2017–2019 Saudi Arabian purge. As of 2023, no firm timeline for completion has been provided.

## Overview

The building has been designed to a height of at least 1,008.2 metres (3,308 ft) (the exact height is being kept private while in development, similar to the Burj Khalifa). At about one kilometre, Jeddah Tower would be the tallest building or structure in the world to date, standing 180 m (591 ft) taller than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Jeddah Tower's 50-hectare (120-acre) plot, along with surrounding buildings, will be the first of a three-phase Jeddah Economic City development. The three-phase project was proposed for a large area of undeveloped waterfront land with an area of 5.2 km2 (2.0 sq mi). The area is located roughly 20 km (12 mi) north of the port city of Jeddah. Jeddah Economic City was designed by HOK Architects, and is estimated to cost at least SR75 billion (US\$20 billion) and take around ten years to build.

The development is envisioned to grow into a new district of Jeddah. The second phase of the project will be the infrastructure development needed to support the city, and the third phase has not yet been revealed.

The focal point of the development and Jeddah Tower's primary use will be to house a Four Seasons hotel, Four Seasons short-rental apartments, Class A office space, and luxury condominiums. The tower will also have the world's highest observation deck. Although the Jeddah Economic City plot is nearly isolated from the current urban core of Jeddah, no land tracts of such size were available closer to the city. Northward is generally considered the direction in which the city will spread in the future.

The primary designer of Jeddah Tower is Chicago-based architect Adrian Smith of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS + GG), the same architect who designed the Burj Khalifa while at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), where he worked for almost 40 years. AS + GG was formed in 2006 by Adrian Smith, Gordon Gill, and Robert Forest. The development of the tower is being managed by Emaar Properties PJSC. Thornton Tomasetti has been selected as the structural engineering firm, and Environmental Systems Design, Inc. (ESD) is a part of the AS + GG design team that serves as the building services engineering consultants.

On 2 August 2011, it was publicly announced by Kingdom Holding, the investment company, that a contract had been signed by Saudi Binladin Group (SBG), that construction was going to start soon, and that the tower was expected to take 63 months to complete. While the official construction estimate is five years and three months (63 months), others calculate that it will take significantly longer, over seven years, based on the duration of Burj Khalifa's construction, which was over six years (with the help of CQC Department).

Besix Group (Belgian Six Construct), which constructed the Burj Khalifa, was previously considered for the contract, but did not win, partially because SBG invested in Jeddah Economic Company (JEC), contributing SR1.5 billion (US\$400 million) towards the development of the project. Besix admitted in 2010 that they expected Binladin Group to win the contract. Jeddah Economic Company is a closed joint stock company (PJSC) formed in 2009 as a financial entity for Jeddah Tower and Jeddah Economic City. It is made up primarily of financiers (stakeholders) Kingdom Holding Company (33.35%), Abrar Holding Company (33.35%), which is owned by Samaual Bakhsh and businessman Abdulrahman Hassan Sharbately (16.67%), as well as the tower's own contractor, Saudi Binladin Group (16.63%). JEC's assets have a book value of nearly SR9 billion, broken down between a land bank of over 5,300,000 m2 (57,048,725 sq ft) (the Jeddah Economic City plot) with a value of SR7.3 billion that will be used as collateral to attain bank loans, and SR1.5 billion in cash. Kingdom Holding is an investment company founded in 1980 and 95% owned by Al-Waleed bin Talal that has assets valued at over \$25 billion, with interests in many major companies such as Walt Disney, PepsiCo, Kodak, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Time Warner, Newscorp, Pinnacle Infotech Solutions, and Citigroup, as well as real estate in London through its Songbird Estates division.

## Construction history

In May 2008, soil testing in the area cast doubt over whether the proposed location could support a skyscraper of the proposed one-kilometer height, and MEED reported that the project had been scaled back, making it "up to 500 metres (1,640 ft) shorter." Work on the foundation was scheduled to begin towards the end of 2012. Statements that construction would soon begin were made starting in 2008. In August 2011, the start of construction was slated as "no later than December." This meant the tower was expected to be completed in 2017, though at that time it was also possible that it could still have been completed by the date the media continued to publish, which was the prior estimate of late 2016. Only if construction had begun promptly and gone smoothly could completion in late 2016 have been achieved.

Reports in 2009 suggested that the project had been put on hold due to the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 and that Bechtel (the initial engineering firm for this project) was "in the process of ending its involvement with the project." Kingdom Holding Company quickly criticized the news reports, insisting that the project had not been shelved.

### Architect selected

In March 2010, Adrian Smith of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS + GG) was selected as the preliminary architect (though they deny involvement in the earlier, mile-high designs). Later, when the proposal was more serious, they won a design competition between eight leading architectural firms, including Kohn Pedersen Fox, Pickard Chilton, Pelli Clarke Pelli, and Foster + Partners, as well as the firm Smith formerly worked for, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which was the final competitor in the competition before AS + GG was chosen. In addition to Burj Khalifa, Adrian Smith has designed several other recent towers; the Zifeng Tower in Nanjing, China, the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, and the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, as well as the Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou, China. The four buildings are all among the eleven tallest in the world. Furthermore, the Pearl River Tower is a unique tower that was originally designed to use zero net energy by drawing all its needed power from wind, sunlight, and geothermal mass, though this design goal was not fully achieved.

In October 2010, the owners (Kingdom Holding Company) signed a development agreement with Emaar Properties PJSC. The final height of the building was questionable, but it was still listed to be over 1 kilometre. Kingdom Holding said construction was progressing.

Designs for the foundation were in place by early August 2011 and the contract for the piling was tendered. On 16 August 2011, Langan International officially announced their involvement and that the foundation and piling had to be uniquely designed to overcome subsurface issues such as soft bedrock and porous coral rock, which normally could not support a skyscraper without settling. The foundation is similar to that of the Burj Khalifa, but larger; it is expected to average around 4.5 m (15 ft) deep with a concrete pad of area around 7,500 m2 (81,000 sq ft). The concrete must have low permeability to keep out corrosive salt water from the Red Sea. Its depth and size are also considered to be an indicator of what the tower's final height will be. The piles will be up to 200 m (660 ft) deep and the pad over 90 m (300 ft) across, yet the building, which will weigh over 900,000 tonnes (890,000 long tons; 990,000 short tons), is expected to settle. The idea is that it settles evenly enough so that the building doesn't tip or put undue stress on the superstructure. Computer modelling programmes performed tests at the site to confirm that the foundation design would work. A later design for the foundation, to be constructed by Bauer in 2013, calls for 270 bored piles up to 110 m (360 ft) deep, which have to be installed into the difficult ground conditions. Some materials needed for the structure are 500,000 m3 (18,000,000 cu ft) of concrete and 80,000 t (79,000 long tons; 88,000 short tons) of steel.

### Approvals

In March and April 2011, several news agencies reported that the Mile-High Tower design had been approved at that height and that the building would cost almost US\$30 billion (SR112.5 billion). This design was going to be drastically larger than the current design, with a floor area of 3,530,316 m2 (38,000,000 sq ft), and would have used futuristic wind-aversion and energy-producing technology for sustainability. It and the surrounding city would have had the ability to accommodate 80,000 residents and one million visitors, according to RIA Novosti. Adrian Smith denied that he was a part of any of the earlier designs, which had been purported in the media. One source even corrected its article and clarified the misunderstanding.

### Contractors selected

In early August 2011, the Binladin Group was chosen as the main construction contractor with the signing of an SR4.6 billion (US\$1.23 billion) contract, which is less than it cost to build the Burj Khalifa (US\$1.5 billion). New renderings were revealed, and on 2 August it was widely reported that the project was a go at the 1,000 m (3,281 ft) height with a building area of 530,000 square metres (5,704,873 sq ft), and will take 63 months to complete. The announcement of the main construction contract signing caused Kingdom Holding Company's stock to jump 3.2% in one day, in addition to KHC already having reported a 21% rise in second-quarter net profit. Also, for the first time, architects Gordon Gill and Adrian Smith officially announced their involvement in the project.

On 13 August 2012, it was announced that the landscaping contract for the Jeddah Tower was to be awarded to Landtech Designs, a US-based company, who will be responsible for irrigating 3.4 hectares (8.5 acres) of green space by using the latest technology in sustainable irrigation. The supply of water to irrigate the green space would be collected through rainwater.

On 21 September 2012, it was announced that financing for the Jeddah Tower was complete. Talal Al Maiman, chief executive officer and managing director of Kingdom Real Estate Development Co. said in an interview "We have all the investors, all the finance, all the money we need," Al Maiman said. "It took us beyond 20 months to convince investors, working every detail and aspect of financing."

On 10 October 2012, Kingdom Holding awarded contracts totalling \$98 million. Kingdom Holding Co. has signed a deal with Subul Development Company for the sale of land in the Kingdom Riyadh Land project for \$66.5 million. The Kingdom Riyadh Land project, a mixed-use commercial and residential development, will generate more than \$5.33 billion of total investment and will house up to 75,000 people. The final master plan contract was awarded to Omrania & Associates and Barton Willmore. Bauer, a German Foundations equipment manufacturer and contractor was awarded a US\$32 million contract to support the initial phases of construction of the Jeddah Tower. This includes the installation of 270 bored piles with diameters of 1.5 metres and 1.8 metres. The enabling works are expected to begin before the end of 2012 and take about 10 months to complete.

On 21 February 2013, the Jeddah Economic Company (JEC) announced that it had appointed an EC Harris/Mace joint venture team to project manage the iconic Jeddah Tower project. The team will be providing project, commercial and design management for the Jeddah Tower development. CEO of JEC, Waleed Abduljaleel Batterjee said that the reason Mace was hired is to use the same team that worked for The Shard in London. On the other hand, EC Harris also has a long list of projects in the region including the Grand Millenium Al-Wahda Hotel, Abu Dhabi's largest hotel complex.

On 29 April 2013, news was reported that the Saudi Water Company had signed a 2.2 billion-riyal (\$587 million) supply deal with Jeddah Economic Co. for the Jeddah tower project. The 25-year agreement to supply 156,000 cubic metres of treated and drinking water a day, enough for 62 Olympic-size pools, was signed by the chief executive of the Jeddah-based developer, Waleed Batraji, and Loay al-Musallam, head of National Water Company.

### Construction begins

Construction started on 1 April 2013. Piling was completed in December 2013. Above ground construction commenced in September 2014.

In late 2017, the owner of Kingdom Holding Co, which owns 33% of the tower, and the chairman of the Saudi Binladen Group, which owns 17% and is the primary contractor, were arrested as part of the 2017 Saudi Arabian purge. Construction of the tower continued, although some senior managers at Kingdom Holding were redirected to other projects. In February 2018, Mounib Hammoud, CEO of Jeddah Economic City, said that construction is continuing and that they hoped to open the tower by 2020. In October 2017 the central core of the tower was at 60 floors and the walls were 248 m (814 ft) high, as of end of 2017 a reported height was 252 m (827 ft).

In March 2018, Kingdom Holding Company signed a deal with Orange Business Services to provide information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure to Jeddah Tower. On March 12 construction of the tower moved forward after the delay.

### Delay

There was steady progress, but in January 2018, building owner JEC halted structural concrete work with the tower about one-third completed due to labour issues with a contractor following the 2017–19 Saudi Arabian purge. Since then construction work has been stalled, partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and as of August 2023, it is uncertain if or when the tower will be finished.

## Design

### Challenges

Sustainability of such a tall building would include problems such as vertical transportation limitations, with elevators only being able to go so far; building swaying, caused by wind; and super column settling, which occurs because concrete tends to shrink as it hydrates and settles under load, whereas steel is dimensionally stable, thereby causing the floors to become uneven. Additionally, a very big core size is required in very tall buildings to support the structure as well as to house the large number of elevators needed. The core size consumes a significant amount of the space on the lower and middle floors.

One of the ways Jeddah Tower attempts to overcome these problems is with its smooth, sloped-exterior design, which, although more expensive to build, offers superior aerodynamic performance over "stepped" designs such as the Burj Khalifa, allowing it to have a more conservative core overall. This was determined by wind tunnel tests performed at Burj Khalifa. Jeddah Tower will also use copious stiffening materials to prevent the excessive swaying that would otherwise make the occupants of upper floors nauseated on windy days, including very high strength concrete that will be up to several metres thick in certain parts of the core. This, along with the highly integrated steel frame and shear walls, is also intended to prevent catastrophic failure of the structure in the event of a terrorist attack. Traditionally, the space consumed by elevators was considered to make a building become increasingly less profitable past 80 floors or so. More recently, it has been the advent of truly mixed-use design such as Shanghai Tower and Burj Khalifa, as well as improved building technology, that have outdated this rule of thumb, which generally applied to single use buildings.

Like Burj Khalifa, Jeddah employs a similar Y-shaped, triangular footprint which promotes stability and increases window views, as well as a tapering form, with the sheer height and wind being the biggest structural design challenge. The smooth, sloped façade of Jeddah Tower particularly induces a beneficial phenomenon known as "wind vortex shedding." Normally when wind swirls around the leeward side of a building, rushing in from both sides to fill the low pressure zone, it would create tornado like vortices, which would rock the building from side to side due to variations in pressure, direction and velocity. The dynamic façade of Jeddah Tower, however, creates an infinite timing differential (whereas Burj Khalifa is limited by the number of steps) in air pressure exertion in any one particular direction, thus creating a more stable structure, as there is no broad area of outstanding pressure or depression at any given time. Put simply, a smooth taper is more aerodynamic than an irregular or jagged taper, while both are advantageous over rectangular geometries. At Jeddah Tower's height, it is considered essentially unfeasible to use a traditional square design.

### External form

The triangular footprint and sloped exterior of Jeddah Tower is designed to reduce wind loads; its high surface area also makes it ideal for residential use. The overall design of the tower, which will be located near both the Red Sea and the mouth of the Obhur Creek (Sharm Ob'hur) where it widens as it meets the Red Sea, as well as having frontage on a man-made waterway and harbour that will be built around it, is intended to look like a desert plant shooting upwards as a symbol of Saudi Arabia's growth and future, as well as to add prominence to Jeddah's status as the gateway into the holy city of Mecca. The designer's vision was "one that represents the new spirit in Saudi Arabia" (Smith).

The 23 hectares (57 acres) area around Jeddah Tower will contain public space and a shopping mall, as well as other residential and commercial developments, and be known as the Jeddah Tower Water Front District, of which, the tower's site alone will take up 500,000 m2 (5,381,955 sq ft). As with many other very tall skyscrapers, including the Kingdom Centre in Riyadh, which is generally considered to have sparked the recent significant commercial developments around it in the district of Olaya, much of the intention of Jeddah Tower is to be symbolic as well as to raise the surrounding land value rather than its own profitability. To that effect, the tower's architect, Adrian Smith, said that the tower "evokes a bundle of leaves shooting up from the ground; a burst of new life that heralds more growth all around it". Smith states that the tower will create a landmark in which it and the surrounding Jeddah Economic City are interdependent. Talal Al Maiman, a board member of Jeddah Economic Company, said, "Jeddah Tower will be a landmark structure that will greatly increase the value of the hundreds of other properties around it in Jeddah Economic City and indeed throughout North Jeddah."

The concept of profitability derived from building high density developments and malls around such a landmark was taken from the Burj Khalifa, where it has proven successful, as its surrounding malls, hotels and condominiums in the area known as Downtown Dubai have generated the most considerable revenue out of that project as a whole, while the Burj Khalifa itself made little or no profit.

### Elevators

The building will have a total of 59 elevators, five of which will be double-deck elevators, as well as 12 escalators. The elevators are made by the Finnish company Kone. It will also have the highest observation deck in the world, to which high speed elevators will travel at up to 10 metres (33 feet) per second (36 km/h or 22 mph) in both directions. The elevators cannot go faster because the change in air pressure at such a rapid speed could cause nausea; at 914 m (3,000 ft), the air pressure is over 10 kPa (1.5 psi) lower than at ground level (a 10% reduction in air pressure). They must also be efficient so the cables are not unbearably heavy. Jeddah Tower will have three sky lobbies where elevator transfers can be made, and no elevator will go from the bottom to the highest occupied floor.

No official floor count has been given; however, Smith stated in a television interview that it will be about 50 floors more than the Burj Khalifa, which has 163 occupied floors, leading to the inference that Jeddah Tower will have over 200 floors. The tower will also feature a large, roughly 30 m (98 ft) diameter outdoor balcony, known as the sky terrace, on one side of the building for private use by the penthouse floor at level 157; it is not the observation deck. It was originally intended to be a helipad, but it was revealed to be an unsuitable landing environment by helicopter pilots. The lower air density, exacerbated by the thin desert atmosphere, will cause the outdoor air temperature towards the top of the tower to be lower than the ground level air, which will provide natural cooling. There is also significantly more air flow (wind) at heights, which is very strong at one kilometre and had a large impact on the structural design of the tower. The Burj Khalifa actually takes in the cooler, cleaner air from the top floors and uses it to air condition the building. Jeddah Tower will be oriented such that no façade directly faces the sun; it will also use the condensate water from the air conditioning system for irrigation and other purposes throughout the building.

To overcome elevator issues, the tower will use its large number of efficient elevators as well as its three sky lobbies, which allows transfers to be made between elevators serving a specific area with no elevator being overburdened. Much was learned from Burj Khalifa that helped with the design of Jeddah Tower not only structurally, but in methods for designing practical mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems, as well as adhering to local regulations and international building codes. Despite all the physical challenges, Adrian Smith states that practicality is still the greater challenge over structural durability, even in such super-tall designs, and that as with all buildings, Jeddah Tower's form was primarily derived respective of what the building's uses would be, then in accordance with the structural factors that would have to be considered to deliver it. Orange S.A. are designing the information and communications infrastructure of the building.

### Internal systems

Chicago-based Environmental Systems Design, Inc. will provide mechanical, plumbing, electrical and fire protection engineering, as well as teledata, audio/visual, security systems, and acoustics. Langan International will be responsible for geotechnical engineering as well as some ground level site work such as transportation engineering and parking, including the design of the proposed 3,000–4,700 car underground parking garage that will be located near, but not under the tower to prevent terrorism. Langan also designed the tower's foundation, which has to be able to support the tower despite the less than optimal subsurface conditions, such as soft rock and permeable coral, which could cause the piles to settle.

Thornton Tomasetti has provided the structural engineering for two of the previous world's tallest building title holders, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, and the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, as well as the under construction Ping An Finance Centre in Shenzhen, which will be the second tallest building in China after completion. Saudi Binladin Group is the largest construction firm in the Middle East, with over 35,000 workers and hundreds of projects. In 2012, they constructed the topped-out 601 m (1,972 ft) Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower in Mecca, which is the tallest building in Saudi Arabia and third tallest in the world, as well as the largest skyscraper in the world by floor area and volume. Aside from buildings, the firm has also constructed many major infrastructure projects, such as the King Abdulaziz (Jeddah) International Airport expansion and the 775 km (482 mi) six lane Al Qassim Expressway through Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Binladin Group is owned by the family of the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. As a result, it has sparked some minor media buzz. When asked his thoughts about this in an interview, Adrian Smith simply stated that they are the largest construction firm in the Middle East, most significant work in Saudi Arabia was done by them, and that it is a very large family that shouldn't be stereotyped by one of its members. Furthermore, in January 2012, New York City judge George B. Daniels ruled that no charges could be filed against SBG to repay the victims of 9/11 as there is no evidence of the construction firm financially supporting bin Laden after he was removed as a shareholder following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

### Economic viability

In addition to its primary functions, the building is slated to include a significant amount of retail as well as a wide variety of other unique amenities with the intention that it functions as a nearly self-sustaining entity, approaching the concept of a "vertical city". The building's design has been applauded as simple and feasible, yet bold, brilliantly sculpted, and high-tech, with AS + GG describing it as "an elegant, cost-efficient and highly constructible design." The estimated construction cost of US\$1.23 billion, which is less than that of the Burj Khalifa (US\$1.5 billion), can be attributed to cheap labour in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, and that three shifts will work around the clock to expedite the process. Construction costs have also declined since the global financial crisis.

In July 2011, a report by consultancy EC Harris found that Saudi Arabia is the cheapest country in the Middle East to build in, half as expensive as Bahrain, and 34% cheaper than the United Arab Emirates, where Burj Khalifa is located. The future towers' site is located in very close proximity to King Abdulaziz (Jeddah) International Airport, whose runways nearly align with the towers' site, which will have an effect on the airspace. While skyscraper experts have stated that towers well over one kilometre, even two kilometres (6,600 feet) high, are technically feasible, physical sustainability and practicality issues come into play in towers of this height. As for physical restraints, Bart Leclercq, head of structures for WSP Middle East recently said, "I truly believe that 1 mile, 1.6 kilometres, is within range. Over that, it may be possible if there are improvements in concrete quality. But 2 km is too big a figure; it's just a step too far at the moment."

## Impact

There is an impending real estate bubble in Saudi Arabia, with increasing demand and rising prices due to high population growth and a short supply of housing, which may include a demand for high-end luxury units, such as those in Jeddah Tower. To boost growth, the Saudi Arabian government is going to invest US\$67 billion (SR251 billion) in building 500,000 homes throughout the country. According to Saudi officials, about 900 new homes are needed a day to meet the demand of the rapidly growing population, which has nearly quadrupled in the past four decades.

Just as the Jeddah Tower will complement the Jeddah Economic City development that will be built around it, there are many infrastructure and revitalisation projects underway and planned throughout Saudi Arabia, such as the US\$7.2 billion (SR27.1 billion) new airport terminal under construction at King Abdulaziz (Jeddah) International Airport, that will complement the Jeddah Economic City as well as develop Saudi Arabia, which has been likened to a Third World country with crumbling infrastructure and widespread disasters, including severe flooding, such as the flash floods in early 2011 that damaged 90% of the roads and over 27,000 buildings in Jeddah.

According to a representative of Standard Chartered, which invested US\$75 million in Saudi Binladin Group, Saudi Arabia is going to spend over US\$400 billion (SR1.5 trillion) on infrastructure over the next few years. According to reports by Citi Investment Research & Analysis, \$220 billion worth of development, accounting for 36% of all construction spending in the MENA region, will be directly or indirectly beneficial to Jeddah Tower. Jeddah Tower and City themselves are intended to set an example of green development, using modern technology and having a low carbon footprint relative to the number of people they will support. However, there is also an increasing problem of poor education levels in Arab countries due to a lack of spending in research and education, which it is argued should be invested in rather than building skyscrapers, and that the tower is nothing more than a symbol of hubris. It has even been likened to the Tower of Babel.

Furthermore, economists have found large new skyscrapers to be a negative economic indicator, with several instances of new tallest buildings being finished and opening into a bad economy, as they generally start during a financial boom when money is easy and investment is strong, but do not finish until the bubble has burst. Examples include the Singer Building and Metropolitan Life Insurance Building after the Panic of 1907, 40 Wall Street, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building built during the Great Depression, the World Trade Center and Sears Tower built during the 1970s economic downturn, the Petronas Towers built during the Asian Crisis of the late 1990s and the Burj Khalifa built during the Great Recession. Much of the study on this phenomenon was done in 1999 by Andrew Lawrence, a research director at Deutsche Bank who created the "skyscraper index," originally as a joke; however, it illustrated the observation that many of the world's tallest buildings have been built on the eve of financial collapse.

### Reception

The developers' theory is that the international attention gained through large developments and having the world's tallest building will incur gentrification of the country and even be a financial success in the long run. Architect Adrian Smith, the designer of the tower, states, "...this tower symbolizes the Kingdom as an important global business and cultural leader, and demonstrates the strength and creative vision of its people. It represents new growth and high-performance technology fused into one powerful iconic form." However, Bob Sinn, principal engineer at Thornton Tomasetti, stated that the practical challenges of building very tall buildings are greater than the structural challenges.

"We intend [Jeddah] Tower to become both an economic engine and a proud symbol of the kingdom's economic and cultural stature in the world community," said Talal Al Maiman, a board member of both Kingdom Holding Company and Jeddah Economic Company. The project's primary proponent, Prince Al-Waleed said, "Building this tower in Jeddah sends a financial and economic message that should not be ignored. It has a political depth to it to tell the world that we Saudis invest in our country."

## Gallery

## Floor directory

It is estimated that the Jeddah Tower will have just over 200 floors.

## See also

- List of tallest buildings
- List of future tallest buildings
- The Illinois

Skyscraper currently on hold in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Buildings and structures under construction in Saudi Arabia