BUF by BFI

Youtube, courtesy of the British Film Institute ("BFI"), has THIS FILM, some ten minutes long, of Mosley and the BUF (on 3rd October 1937) seeking to undertake a planned march from Westminster to Bermondsey: Mosley himself, flags and standard bearers, British fascists, female British fascists, a Scottish pipe and drum band, British communists/left wingers giving the clenched fist salute, mounted policemen, lorried policemen, lots of policemen....and a final segment on the "BUF Black House" in the Kings Road, Chelsea (complete with passing Norland nanny in uniform and pram). If nothing else, filmed evidence that being "on sentry duty" at the front entrance of the Black House must have been an extremely wearisome job.....

Some background on the 3rd October 1937 march can be found HERE, an extract from "Rebel Footprints" by David Rosenberg.

HOW CLOSE WAS CIVIL WAR?

Extracts from "Blackshirt : Sir Oswald Mosely & British Fascism" by Stephen Dorril, pps 404 - 405:

"With the crisis front-page news [on Thursday 3rd December 1936], Mosley was in Liverpool, where he was joined at the Adelphi Hotel by [William] Joyce [BUF Director of Propaganda] and [John] Beckett [BUF Director of Publications], who found him 'in a state of great excitement'. He claimed 'to be in direct communication with the Court. The King was strengthened by the knowledge of the support of his movement, and for this reason would accept Baldwin's resignation and call upon Mosley to form a government. Mosley later admitted that he had been in secret correspondence with Edward. He denied seeing Edward but he had a number of close contacts with the King, such a 'Fruity' Metcalfe [close friend of and equerry to Edward]. There was a feeling within the BUF that 'something was going on and that they were going to achieve power.'

Mosley detailed plans to Joyce and Beckett 'for governing without Parliament.' He 'strode about the room in excitement as he explained that millions of pounds would be available to fight an election in such a cause, and that as Prime Minister he could broadcast as often as he wished. This, he was certain, could not fail to turn the electorate in his favour.' There was then a telephone call and Beckett recalled that when Mosley replaced the receiver 'he turned to us and explained that he had received most important news from the Court. He apologised for speaking in cipher, but said he always used it because his calls were intercepted by the CID'. Beckett thought Mosley's secretiveness schoolboyish but was sure he 'really believed he was on the threshold of great power'.....

and:

"[On 5th December 1936] General Sir Ian Hamilton, former Commander-in-Chief at Gallipoli, who had seen Hitler secretly under cover of British Legion trips to Europe, told Baldwin 'there would be an ex-serviceman's revolution if the King abdicated'. Detective author Anthony Cox ('Francis Iles') heard from military friends of 'a conspiracy of young hotheads, junior captains in the Household Brigade, to take up arms against the Government and for the King and putting the Prime Minister under arrest.' Ceremonial guards outside Buckingham Palace were said to have been issued with live ammunition."

and:

"The King had 'a night of soul searching' [the night of 5th/6th December] about supporting a King's Party. 'In the end, I put out of my mind the thought of challenging the Prime Minister. By making a stand I should have left the scars of civil war'....The King [then] sent messages to Mosley of 'polite thanks for his offers of support' of which he had 'felt unable to take advantage."

and finally:

"The telephone call between Mosley and his royal contact proved to Beckett that the Leader was 'dangerously near the borderline between genius and insanity'. He knew the man [at Court] as 'a dilettante society friend of Mosley's, who lived in as fictitious a world of grandeur as Mosley himself.' Beckett had left Mosley 'convinced that he already believed himself in charge of the nation's affairs'. His 'powers of self-delusion had finally conquered his sanity. He could not realise that nobody except himself and the comical little group of ex-peddlers and humourless ex-officers with whom he was surrounded took him at all seriously'"

Notes:

(1). John Beckett (b.1894 -d.1964), together with William Joyce, left the BUF in 1937 after a falling out with Mosley. They then formed the National Socialist League together, but Beckett subsequently left the NSL in 1938, "disillusioned by Hitler and arguing that Joyce was being too extremist in his public anti-Semitic outbursts."

(2). althought not positively identified, the "man at Court...a dilettante society friend of Mosley's..." is very likely to have been "Fruity" Metcalfe, married to Alexandra Curzon (known in the 1930s as "Baba Blackshirt") but without great wealth, brains or family distinction himself.

(3). standard disclaimer : those reading this Blog for news of the "Very British Civil War" may well be entirely disorientated by this post. Never fear : it clearly refers to an alternative universe, where Edward VIII did not fight for his throne (particularly via his loyal lieutenants in Herefordshire) but instead cravenly abdicated and fled abroad.

1920s advertising poster for the Adelphi Hotel

The dining room of the Adelphi in the early 1940s

1941. Five years after Mosley's machinations at the Adelphi, and Liverpool is under sustained attack
from the Luftwaffe. The Adelphi (in background) has had a near miss.

December 1936. The nightmare of aerial bombardment is  - as yet - only a contingent future,
as Mosley plots an unconstitutional coup in an upstairs suite...

BUF LONDON HQ

Just a short post to direct the enquiring reader to this helpful post providing an illustrated history of the BUF's London HQ from 1932 to 1940. This fits in and develops our own earlier post on the VBCW Hereford "Black House".

Oswald Mosley raising the BUF Flag in Central London on 1st October 1932 at the launching
of the first BUF National Headquarters. Note Italian Fasces symbol on the flag at this time,
illustrating Mosley's initial influence by Mussolini. Hitler did not become Chancellor of
Germany until January 1933 and President Hindenberg remained in office until his death
 on 2nd August 1934. A "Google Maps" search will indicate just how close the BUF's
National HQ at 1 Great George Street was to "Big Ben" and the Houses of Parliament

OXFORD UNIVERSITY FASCISM

From one of the bulging intelligence files of Big X, Chief of Ludlow's Ecclesiastical Intelligence Service (or possibly just the Internet), comes contemporary evidence of BUF activity at the University of Oxford:

The Menu for the First Annual Dinner of the Oxford University Fascist Association,
held at the Clarendon Hotel on Tuesday, 20th November 1934. Mosley's signature
 appears at the top left, with the signatures of William Joyce (to the right) and
 Charles F. Wegg-Prosser (lower half) being the only others now fully legible. 

The Term Card for the OUFA four years later, in Spring (or Hilary Term) 1938. The Organising Secretary was Howard Biggs (Lincoln College) and the Junior Treasurer Miss JPM Wegg-Prosser (Lady Margaret Hall), clearly a relative of
 1934's Charles F. Wegg Prosser. The list of speakers contains a number of interesting names, and the term concludes
with another Annual Dinner addressed by "the Leader".

By the Spring of 1939, the OU Fascist Association had transmuted into the
Oxford University National Socialist Club. The earlier Italian style "Fasces" symbol,
seen on the 1934 Dinner Menu, had changed to the BUF "Flash".
Mosley signs the Menu again, but this time alone.

By 1939, there is no term card, the list of speakers being introduced only as those
"who have addressed the Club during the past few years." These include,
most prominently to modern eyes, Maj General JFC Fuller, Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe,
the aircraft pioneer and manufacturer, and Major Francis Yeats-Brown,
author of "Lives of a Bengal Lancer".

Notes:

Charles F. Wegg Prosser (1934 Menu Card signature) (b.1910 - d.1996) joined the BUF in 1934, but by 1937 had become disillusioned with "the Movement" and began to speak out against its anti-semitism and fondness for dictatorship. He then joined the Labour Party (on a year's probation) and, after war service (Major, London Irish Rifles) and having qualified as a solicitor, was elected to Paddington Metropolitan Borough Council in 1945, eventually becoming Leader of the Labour Group and an Alderman. He stood unsuccessfully as the Labour Parliamentary Candidate in Paddington South at four General Elections (1945, 1950, 1951 and 1955). See also : "British Catholics and Fascism - Religious Identity and Political Extremism between the Wars" by Tom Villis. His grandson, Benjamin "Oofy" Wegg-Prosser, was an adviser to Peter Mandelson, and then, from 2005 - 2007, Tony Blair's "Director of Strategic Communications" at 10 Downing Street.

William Joyce (1934 Menu Card signature) (b.1906 - d.1946). Five years after the 1934 OUFA Annual Dinner, which he must have attended as an assistant to Mosley, Joyce had fled to Germany and was broadcasting Nazi propaganda back to England. Swiftly dubbed "Lord Haw-Haw", he was caught at the end of the war and convicted of treason. He was hanged within the walls of HMP Wandsworth on 3rd January 1946. Formerly a member of  Rotha Lintorn-Orman's British Fascisti, he served as the BUF's "Director of Propaganda" until 1937 when, following a breach with Mosley, he left the BUF and formed, with John Beckett, the National Socialist League. See also : "Hitler's Englishman : The Crime of Lord Haw-Haw" by Francis Selwyn.

Howard Biggs (Spring 1938 Term Card) (b.1917 - d.1994) became the Organising Secretary of the OUFA in his very first term at Oxford, in 1936, which suggests the OUFA had neither a very large membership nor many "activists". He left Oxford in 1939 without a degree. In June 1940, he was detained under Regulation 18(b), spending the new eighteen months in various prisons and camps, including on the Isle of Man. He was released subject to restrictions in January 1942, and the 18(b) Order finally revoked in January 1944. Although it is not entirely clear, he appears to have spent many years thereafter as a teacher at his old school, Stone House School in Kent. He took no further part in public politics. His papers are now held at the University of Sheffield Library (Special Collections). See also: "What did you do during the War? The Last Throes of the British Pro Nazi Right 1940-1945" by Richard Griffiths.

William Risdon (Spring 1938 List of Speakers) (b. 1896 - d. 1967) was a trade union organiser, founder member of the BUF and an anti-vivesection campaigner. See his Wikipedia entry. See also: "Black Shirt and Smoking Beagles. A Biography of Wilfred Risdon: an unconventional Campaigner" by J.L.Risdon.

Lt. Col. Sir Lionel B.H. Haworth KBE (Spring 1938 List of Speakers) (b.1873 - d.1951) had served in the Indian Army and as a diplomat in the Persian Gulf. Retired 1929, having served as "Gulf Resident".In 1936, he had been nominated as the BUF Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in Chelsea.

Edward "Mick" Clarke (Spring 1938 List of Speakers) (b.?? - d.??) was a principal BUF organiser and prominent platform speaker in the East End of London. He was "District Leader" of Bethnal Green North East until April 1937, when he was promoted to "District Inspector" of East London. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry on the BUF (ed. Julie V. Gottlieb, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/96364) describes him as "a typical rabble rouser and notorious Jew-baiter, concentrating his attention on the East End." See also: "East London for Mosley : the British Union of Fascists in East London and South West Essex 1933 - 1940" by Thomas P. Linehan.

Viscountess Lady Downe (Spring 1938 List of Speakers) (b.1876 - 1957) was a Lady in Waiting to Queen Mary. Widow of the the 9th Viscount Downe (1872 - 1931). During the 1920s, she had been involved with Rotha Lintorn-Orman's British Fascisti, being the County Commander of Women's Units, North Riding of Yorkshire. Thereafter, she switched to the Conservative Party (becoming Chairman of the Kings Lynn Conservative Women's Association), but then left the Conservatives in 1934 "in disgust" ("News Chronicle" 23 April 1934) and thereafter joined the BUF.

Harold E. Goad (1939 List of Speakers) (b.??- d.??), poet and journalist, from 1923 - 1939 the Director of the British Institute in Florence. A huge admirer of Mussolini's "Corporate State". See: "Corporatism and Fascism: The Corporatist Wave in Europe" ed. Antonio Costa-Pinto

Captain Robert Gordon-Canning (1939 List of Speakers) (b.1888 - d.1967) was the BUF's expert on foreign affairs and Director of Overseas Policy. He was best man at the wedding of Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford (in 1936, at the house of Joseph Goebels, with Hitler as "guest of honour") but fell out with Mosley in 1939 and left the BUF. After the outbreak of war, he hosted a series of meetings designed to fuse the various far-Right groups into one force, but the effort failed. He was interned under Regulation 18B in July 1940 and not released until 1943.

Alexander Raven Thompson (1939 List of Speakers) (b.1899-1955) was the Director of Policy of the BUF and author of "The Corporate State". This Wiki Entry has further details, including his description as "the Alfred Rosenberg of British Fascism"

Michael Goulding (1939 List of Speakers) (b.??-d.??), a London East Ender like "Mick" Clarke, was a prominent BUF member and speaker from, and the BUF's Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for, Shoreditch. See : "East London for Mosley (etc)" by Linehan.

P.G. Taylor (1939 List of Speakers) (b.?? - d.??) was Head of the Industrial Department and the "Z" Intelligence Organisation of the BUF. He was also an MI5 agent (real name James McGuirk Hughes) reporting to Maxwell Knight, Head of Dept B5b of MI5. See also : "The Failure of British Fascism: The Far Right and the Fight for Political Recognition" ed. Mike Cronin

Jorian Jenks (1939 List of Speakers) (b.1899 - d.1963) was an "English farmer, environmentalism pioneer and fascist", being described as "one of the most dominant figures in the development of the organic movement". He was the agricultural adviser to the BUF. See his Wikipedia entry. See also:

Farming, Fascism and Ecology : A Life of Jorian Jenks" by Philip M. Coupland.

The Clarendon Hotel, Oxford (1934 First Annual Dinner), formerly situated at No.52, Cornmarket, no longer exists, having been demolished by Woolworths in 1954 to make way for their then new store. It was used as an American Serviceman's Club during the war, by which time Mosley was languishing in Regulation 18B detention (from 1940 - 1943) at HMP Holloway. A history of the Clarendon Hotel and demolition can be found HERE

Cornmarket during the interwar period. At No.52, the Clarendon Hotel can be seen on the left.

An Anti - Fascist Account : Mosley's visits to Oxford were not always to dine with students, nor always peaceful. This article from "Fighting Talk Magazine - Anti Fascist Action" describes the foundation of the Oxford "Red Shirts" and the "Oxford Council of Action against War and Fascism", together with their battles against Mosley at the Carfax Assembly Rooms in 1933 and 1936. On the disturbances that took place on the second occasion (25th May 1936) the account concludes "...when it was all over the fascists knew what it was like to be on the end of a good kicking....."

Carfax Assembly Rooms : these Assembly Rooms were situated at 62-65 Cornmarket, just across Carfax itself from the Clarendon Hotel. An illustrated history of the building can be found HERE

Another Anti Fascist Warrior : From the same LINK, evidence that not all of those fighting at Carfax were "street warriors". After Mosley's visit in May 1936, Hugh Trevor Roper (the eminent historian, later Lord Dacre) wrote to his mother relating that "protestors were set upon by Blackshirt 'stewards' armed with truncheons" adding "great damage to the Blackshirts was done by one of the dons of Christ Church [Frank Pakenham, later Lord Longford] who, being struck over the head by a Blackshirt with a steel chain, was roused to a berserk fury..." Robert Shepherd's excellent study of Appeasement, "A Class Divided" adds (p.90): "The threat from Fascism was undoubtedly proving an effective recruiting sergeant for the left. Frank Pakenham (later Lord Longford) converted to socialism (he had worked in the Conservative Research Department in the early 1930s) following a riot at a rally of Oswald Mosley's in Oxford in the early summer of 1936. The audience was a mixture of townspeople, dons and their wives, and Oxford busmen. Mosley goaded the audience. The busmen shouted out 'Red Front!'. The audience applauded. Mosley retorted that anyone who repeated the slogan would be thrown out. This was the cue for Basil Murray, son of the classicist Gilbert, to rise from his seat and, in a very academic, mild-mannered voice, utter the dreaded words. All hell broke loose. Blackshirts, busmen and dons were suddenly thrown into a pitched battle. Christopher Mayhew was reporting the meeting for Isis (the University paper) and later wrote to his parents:

"I saw my tutor of last term - the Hon. F.A. Pakenham, a pillar of the Conservative Association - attacked by three Blackshirts at once, who were hanging round his neck and hitting him while he   swiped about with a chair. Another don from Christ Church, Patrick Gordon Walker, was fighting hard to defend him, and I saw too Dick Crossman, Vice-Warden of New College and a City Councillor in the middle of the fight."

An Independent Witness : from Richard Hillary's best selling (and deeply affecting) wartime best seller, "The Last Enemy", evidence that very few of those fighting for Mosley at Carfax were students of Oxford University. Hillary went up to Trinity College in 1937 and noted (p.1, my italics) "....politics filled a large space. That humorous tradition of Oxford verbosity, the Union, held a political debate every week; Conservative, Labour, and even Liberal Clubs flourished; and the British Union of Fascists had managed to raise a back room and twenty-four members."

SPRING BIG GAME 2020

The Spring Big Game 2020 ("Assault on Newquay"), due to be held on 21st March 2020, had to be postponed by reason of the Covid-19 crisis. For all the relevant VBCW events, see HERE.