Sir Vincent Henry Penalver Caillard (23 October 1856 – 18 March 1930) was a British intelligence officer, diplomat, financier, industrialist and company director, principally for Vickers.

After being commissioned in the Royal Engineers, in the early 1880s Caillard was engaged in intelligence duties in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean.

After returning to England in 1898 Caillard entered private business, taking up positions as a director in a diversity of companies engaged in areas such as in banking, agricultural development and railways.

In 1906 he was appointed financial director of Vickers, a position he held during the massive pre-war build-up of armaments in Europe and the Near East, and World War I that followed.

Caillard developed a close relationship with the Greek arms-dealer Basil Zaharoff and acted as an intermediary between him and senior British politicians during the war.

Caillard resigned from Vickers in August 1927 after a post-war period of losses and allegations of mis-managment of the company, leading to a major write-down of capital in 1926.

[3] In April 1879, Caillard was appointed as an assistant to the British Commission for the delimitation of the Montenegrin frontier, formed in the wake of the Treaty of Berlin of July 1878 which enabled the recognition of the independent state of Montenegro in the Balkan region.

[8] During his tenure on the Ottoman Public Debt Council, Caillard "earned a reputation as a business innovator and a political schemer, who ruthlessly advanced Britain's predatory commercial interests in the Levant".

[3] Caillard introduced the Greek arms-dealer and industrialist Basil Zaharoff to Chamberlain and "the two men soon found an identity of interests".

[13] Caillard used his connections in international business circles to arrange finance for Vickers' customers during the pre-war build-up of armaments in Europe and the Near East.

Although Zaharoff and Francis Barker were the principal salesmen for Vickers, Caillard was also involved in direct business negotiations using his contacts in the Ottoman empire.

[7] Early in 1914 Caillard negotiated for Vickers and Armstrong Whitworth to carry out the reconstruction of the Turkish fleet, dockyards and arsenals.

[2] After 1914 Caillard was increasingly occupied with political activity, in opposition to labour militancy and promoting a post-war protectionist reconstruction of the British commercial sector.

[14][15] Caillard led "an outspoken and disgruntled protectionist faction" within the Federation of British Industries and served as the body's third president in 1919.

[7] He acted as an intermediary between Basil Zaharoff and successive British prime ministers Herbert Asquith and Lloyd George, when the Greek arms-dealer was entrusted with clandestine negotiations in various attempts to bribe Turkish politicians to take the Ottoman empire out of the war.

The output of munitions under wartime conditions produced profits for Vickers of over £4 million pounds in the period 1916 to 1919, but questions began to emerge about the company's internal accounting.

In March 1919 Vickers purchased British Westinghouse, the electrical interests of the Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon & Finance Co., for £19 million pounds (considered by observers to be an inflated valuation).

The Society held their meetings in the upper storey of Zoë Caillard's private residence, called 'The Belfry', in West Halkin Street in the Belgravia district of London.

It was a drum-shaped table with a pendulum on a revolving arm which swings freely and makes contact with small metal plates representing letters of the alphabet.

Even the visiting American psychic Arthur Ford, who attended séances at 'The Belfry', expressed the opinion that messages from the communigraph had an earthly origin.