Society of Bexhill Museums

The large audience was kept spellbound by Martin Lloyd's true tales involving the use of passports, genuine and otherwise, during the last two centuries.

Starting with the failed attempted assassination of the French Emperor Napoleon III outside the Paris Opera in January 1858 by an Italian revolutionary, Count Orsini, Mr .Lloyd also recounted the sad story of the German spy Carl Lody, and that of the 'English' traitor, William Joyce in the Second World War.

All three had obtained passports illegally, and because of the limitations of these documents at the time, operated without hindrance before being caught by other means.

Count Orsini used an English fellow-conspirator's passport in the days when there was no description of the holder on the document, only the signature of the Foreign Secretary at the time (Palmerston!).

Carl Lody was given a genuine American passport, stolen from its real owner, before the days of the passport photograph.

William Joyce was tried as a traitor on the basis of a British passport which he had obtained by fraud in the Thirties, although by then he was the rightful owner of a German passport.

All three were caught as a result of amazing coincidences and executed.