| Stephen Alley | |
| Honorific Suffix: | MC |
| Birth Date: | 14 February 1876 |
| Birth Place: | House of Yusupov Palace, Moscow, Russia |
| Death Date: | 1969 |
| Death Place: | Ware, Hertfordshire |
Captain Stephen Alley (14 February 1876 – 1969)[1] was a British mechanical engineer and Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) agent in pre-revolutionary Russia who may have had an involvement in the murder of Rasputin in 1916 and in a plan to try to rescue the Russian Imperial Family, the Romanovs, imprisoned in Ipatiev House in 1918 by the Bolsheviks.[2]
Stephen Alley was born on 14 February 1876[3] at Arkhangelskoye Estate near Moscow.[4] After being educated in Russia he attended King's College London where he studied English Literature, and later moved to Glasgow University where he took a degree in engineering.
He was commissioned a second-lieutenant in the Surrey Yeomanry on 18 October 1902.
After university he joined the family firm of Alley & McLellan Engineers in London. In 1910 he returned to Russia, where he helped build the first heavy oil pipeline to the Black Sea. He became experienced in building rail transport.[5] He is noted by many authors and documentaries for alleged involvement in the murder of Grigori Rasputin whilst working for the British Military Control Office in Saint Petersburg.[6] [7] Alley was alleged to be the author of a letter to John Scale on 25 December 1916 that, if authentic, is claimed by BBC History to be "the best proof of British involvement in Rasputin's murder."[8] Stephen Alley participated in a plan to try to rescue the Russian Imperial Family, the Romanovs, imprisoned in the Ipatiev House in 1918 by the Bolsheviks. The plan did not work out.[9]
Alley died in 1969.[3]