Ralph Follett Wigram ( ; 23 October 1890 – 31 December 1936) was a British government official in the Foreign Office. He helped raise the alarm about German rearmament under Hitler during the period prior to World War II. In part, he did this by providing intelligence information about German rearmament to Winston Churchill, at a time when Churchill did not hold a position in the government of Stanley Baldwin. Churchill used the information to publicly attack the policies of Baldwin. Churchill's magisterial six-volume history of World War II, The Second World War, described Wigram as a "great unsung hero". The autobiography of Valentine Lawford, who worked under Wigram in the Central Department, describes him variously as "the authentic local deity" and "the departmental volcano." Wigram's role was brought to public attention by the Southern Television drama serial Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (in which he was portrayed by Paul Freeman), and later by the biographical movie about Churchill, The Gathering Storm (in which he was portrayed by Linus Roache). Winston Churchill wrote: Early life and education Wigram was the son of Eustace Rochester Wigram and Mary Grace Bradford-Atkinson, and had a younger sister, Isabel. He was the grandson of the Right Reverend Joseph Cotton Wigram, Bishop of Rochester, younger son of Sir Robert Wigram, 1st Baronet. He was a second cousin of Lord Wigram. He was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford. Career Wigram joined the Foreign Office after graduation. He served as temporary secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, from 1916 to 1919, as third secretary at the Foreign Office from 1919 to 1920, as second secretary at the Foreign Office from 1920 to 1921, as first secretary at the British Embassy in Paris from 1924 to 1933, and as counsellor at the Foreign Office and head of the Central Department from 1934 to 1936. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1933. German rearmament and Churchill Wigram's superior in the Foreign Office, Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Robert Vansittart had been quite alarmed about the German situation for several years, and when Wigram came on board, they soon came to share deep concern about the situation. Churchill's biographer William Manchester described one of Wigram's memoranda from this period as having "a sagacity and vision seldom matched in Britain's archives". In the beginning, they tried to raise the