THE BLACKSHIRTS OF WELLINGBOROUGH

Philip M. Coupland (drpmc66@ntlworld.com)

The 1998 Channel 4 television drama 'Mosley' and the controversy it aroused well illustrate the continuing fascination with the career of the former Labour minister Sir Oswald Mosley and the activities of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) which he founded.

It is perhaps less well known locally that blackshirts were worn in Wellingborough. Indeed, Wellingborough was the first BUF outpost in the county and one of the earliest provincial branches, being established in November 1932, only a month after Mosley launched the movement in London. Under the title 'Black Shirts for Wellingborough', the local press reported that John P. had resigned as Secretary of the town's British Legion to establish fascism in Wellingborough. A family man in his forties and the proprietor of a long established boot and shoe shop, JP was also a veteran of the Great War. Responding to one of his carefully argued letters in the local press Joseph Cohen, Labour PPC for Kettering, admitted that it was 'gratifying to find a Fascist who is prepared to condescend to use the democratic instruments of argument and persuasion'.

A month after its establishment the new branch held a public meeting at which ex-Liberal Patrick Moir spoke. Although Moir claimed rapid growth for the BUF nationally, progress remained modest in Wellingborough. In June 1933 JP declared in the press that fascism had become 'a real national issue' and he challenged local organisations to a debate. Despite this, only a small audience could be attracted to the Central Hall in December to hear William Joyce. Later notorious as 'Lord Haw Haw' and hung for treason for his wartime broadcasts from Berlin, the local press described Joyce as a 'brilliant orator and master of the facts'.

Shortly after Joyce's visit, uniformed Wellingborough blackshirts attended Earls Barton parish church where the Rev. Louis Ewart the previous week had preached an anti-Jewish and pro-Nazi sermon; the local press spoke of his 'out-and-out championship of Hitler'. Ewart also tried to secure Mosley to speak at the Monthly Men's Service. The BUF Leader regretted that ill-health prevented him visiting Earls Barton but the Wellingborough Blackshirts were there once more in May 1934 for the Annual Sportsmen's Service.

It was in the first half of 1934 that the BUF nationally enjoyed its most rapid growth assisted by articles in the Daily Mail with titles such as 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts'. The fascists' campaign culminated at a mass meeting at Olympia in London where the often ferocious violence with which the Blackshirts responded to efforts to break-up their meeting, made the BUF notorious. Among the Wellingborough blackshirts who travelled to Olympia was eighteen year old Wynne H. WH, whose father was a confectioner in the town and who later married an Ilford fascist, had several local girl friends who were also in the BUF and organised a children's class called the 'Blackshirt Pippins'. On the front page of the Evening Telegraph under the title 'local girl Fascist in Olympia riots', WH related having to fight her way into the hall under attack from women Communists who 'scratched and used hatpins'. Inside the hall she mentioned Communists using 'spiked knuckledusters' and 'other dreadful weapons.'

 

In Wellingborough, despite the disappointing response to Joyce, another meeting at the Cambridge Assembly Rooms was arranged for July at which Colonel Crocker of BUF HQ spoke. Despite all these efforts, Wellingborough branch was unable to achieve significant progress. Faulkner, Secretary of Wellingborough Labour Party, believed that fascism was not 'being taken at all seriously' and that 'public sympathy' was 'quite definitely anti-fascist.' He estimated the branch's membership to be 'round about 50' including persons 'who do not reside in Wellingborough itself.' This figure may be high as a police report at the same time reported a membership of only six and JP also later commented that there were 'only a very few' of them.

Nonetheless, while sending fascist speakers from London was unproductive the Blackshirts remained visible thorough their efforts to sell the BUF press in the town. On his pitch outside Boots and Woolworths in Market Street Jeffrey G., a farmer's son from near Finedon, over six feet tall and resplendent in blackshirt, grey breeches, and the red, white and blue BUF armband was, Wellingborough News wrote, 'well known among the Saturday night throng' for his 'persistent but good-natured efforts to sell his papers'. Through these efforts, and by cycling thirty to forty miles around the district, JG managed to set a new national record of 70 sales and received a signed copy of Mosley's book The Greater Britain. JG was later surpassed by his fellow Wellingborough Blackshirt John R. who sold 105 Copies.

Despite the decline in the national fortunes of the Blackshirts after Olympia, they continued to campaign in the area. Captain Vincent Collier visited in one the BUF's propaganda vans: 'An armoured van… patrolling Wellingborough' was reported in the local press. Collier held an open air meeting in the Market Square and JP and volunteers from Wellingborough and Kettering assisted his tour locally. Meetings with a loudspeaker mounted on a handcart-probably assembled by Vic B., a local electrician and blackshirt-were also held on the Square. At the time of the Abyssinia crisis in 1935, in one of a succession of speeches from blackshirts against war in the county, Captain Dunkerton, a speaker from London, argued that sanctions against Italy promised 'more war memorials than lampposts in Wellingborough.'

As Germany pushed Europe closer to war over the remaining years of the decade, the BUF continued to demand that the government 'Mind Britain's Business' rather than oppose Nazi aggression. One major tactic in this campaign were the painted slogans which appeared all over the country. 'Britain First', with the fascist symbol of the 'flash of action within the circle of unity' either side, appeared daubed over bridge walls on the Wellingborough-Rushden road. However, local indifference remained impregnable and on the last Saturday evening of peace time, blackshirts with a loud speaker van could rouse 'little enthusiasm' on the Market Square.

With the declaration of war the BUF entered its final phase which ended in May 1940 when, faced with the imminent possibility of invasion, and fearful of 'fifth column' activity from fascists, the government interned Mosley and hundreds of blackshirts. None of the Wellingborough fascists were detained but under the title 'Wellingborough sequel to London arrests' the local press described how JP, a Head Warden in the town's ARP organisation, resigned 'to save future trouble'. 'Naturally I was sorry to do so' he said.

Even at this time of near-hysteria it was conceded that JP had always expounded the BUF's 'doctrines in a quiet and reasoned manner'. Summing-up Wellingborough's reaction to the BUF, JP commented that 'people took absolutely no notice'. I have also been told that JP later regretted his politics of these years.

Principal Sources Used: The Public Record Office, Kew and the National Museum of Labour History, Manchester; Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, Wellingborough News and Northamptonshire Advertiser, Northampton Chronicle and Echo, The Fascist Week, Blackshirt, Action and information received from residents of Wellingborough and District.

This article originally appeared in: Northamptonshire Local History News, 4  8 (Autumn 1999), 9-13.

The right of Philip M. Coupland to be identified as the author of this article has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

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