Now, I really don't want this blog to just be about fascist groups, but people write about them more than communists.
One thing I have been doing is watching 'Endeavour', the prequel series to 'Inspector Morse' and 'Lewis'. These I have found fascinating.
In an episode I saw earlier this year concerned, in part, an aristocratic family who had been Fascist sympathisers in the '30s, and included one of the police officers telling another character that her husband
'...should have hanged with Spode, Webley and the rest of them'.
As well as our old friend Roderick Spode, 'Webley' is surely a reference to Everard Webley, leader of the Brotherhood of British Freemen, a proto-fascist group from 'Point-Counterpoint' by Aldous Huxley (as mentioned in a post from 18 months ago, which co-incidentally also mentions this very episode of Endeavour). The aristocratic family (part of it at least, the family relationships are complicated) was called 'Creighton-Ward' - the name of Lady Penelope from the Thunderbirds, though the lady in question's title is 'Lady Bayswater'. I shall have to watch the episode again to find the name of her husband, and whether he died recently or some time ago. Anyway, I shall refer to him as 'Lord Bayswater' until I find out any different.
The murder that sparks the police investigation had been committed at an Army base - that of the fictional South Oxfordshire (Light Infantry?) Regiment. While at the regimental HQ, Morse is involved in a conversation about regimental history when mention is made of '...the boy who saved the Colours at M'boto Gorge'. As every fan of Blackadder knows, the engagement at M'boto Gorge was fought c.1892, probably in West Africa, and included (as well as the South Oxfordshire Regiment featured in the episode) the 19/45th East African Rifles, which is Edmund Blackadder's former regiment, along with General Haig (who was presumably at that point a Lieutenant or Captain). There is reference in Blackadder to an attack with 'a particularly vicious piece of mango'. Haig at this point was a cavalry officer, which implies that along with regular and colonial infantry, some cavalry was also present.
This is one of the most astonishing things about 'Endeavour' - the depth and background that go into the writing and world-creation are the equal of anything we do as world-creators.
Anyway, this got me thinking about Mosley analogues, so I went to the Oswald Mosley wiki-page to see if I could find more.
From the wiki entry on Mosley (which also lists both Spode and Webley as fictional characters inspired by Mosley, though as Point-Counterpoint was published in 1928, before Mosley turned to Fascism, it is not in fact likely that he was the model for Webley):
"... In H. G. Wells's 1939 novel The Holy Terror, a Mosley-like character called Lord Horatio Bohun is the leader of an organisation called the Popular Socialist Party. The character is principally motivated by vanity and is removed from leadership and sent packing to Argentina...
In the 1993 The Remains of the Day film the character of Sir Geoffrey Wren is based loosely on that of Sir Oswald Mosley..."
So there seem to be three other fascist leaders of the 1920s-'30s. More names to flesh out the list of 'Spode, Webley and the rest of them'?
'Lord Horatio Bohun' has little information about him. 'The Holy Terror' follows the life of one Rud Whitlow, and seems to go from Wells' recent past (presumably around 1910) to the near future (perhaps around 1955). Bohun at any rate is the founder and leader of the Popular Socialist Party: he is successfully challenged for control of the party by Whitlow and his associates in 'The Group', who are the main characters of the novel. Presumably, this is around 1940. The post-1938 portions of the novel may then be regarded as merely plans or musings on the possibility of taking over the world, and perhaps Bohun is not sent to Argentina at all...
I can only find reference to 'Sir Geoffrey Wren' listed in the information on the film version of 'The Remains of the Day', rather than the book itself. All I know is that he attended at least one of Lord Darlington's parties and praised Nazi Germany's Racial Purity Laws, leading to the dismissal of two women from Lord Darlington's employ - they were German-Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. So, presumably some time after the Nazis began implementing the Racial Purity Laws, which were really put into effect from the Summer of 1936 onwards. Wren was also a vegetarian. However, Lord Darlington himself is also somewhat sympathetic to the Nazis (in both book and film - the incident of the dismissal of the German-Jewish women occurs in both). Like the husband of Lady Bayswater, Lord Darlington survives the war; 'The Remains of the Day' is a kind of memoir of Lord Darlington's butler from the viewpoint of the late 1950s, after Lord Darlington's recent death.
So these two references, combined with the information from 'Endeavour', allow a certain amount of speculation as to the fates of various Fascist leaders of the '20s and '30s.
Roderick Spode - The Saviours of Britain (The Blackshorts) - hanged c. 1943
Everard Welby - The Brotherhood of British Freemen (The Greenshirts) - hanged c. 1943
Lord Horatio Bohun - Popular Socialist Party - hanged c. 1943? Or exiled to Argentina c. 1939?
Rud Whitlow - Popular Socialist Party, 'The Group' - fate unknown, possibly hanged c. 1943?
Sir Geoffrey Wren - organisation unknown - hanged c. 1943?
Lord Darlington - organisation unknown - died c. 1955.
Lord Bayswater - organisation unknown - died before 1967.
These snippets then can be the framework on which the 'British League of Fascists' can take shape. If the Greenshirts, the Blackshorts and the Popular Socialist Party came together around 1936 (perhaps it is Bohun's refusal to do this that leads to some younger and more ideologically-committed members of his party, organised as 'The Group', to oust him from the leadership) then this could indeed be the 'British League of Fascists'.
I can only find reference to 'Sir Geoffrey Wren' listed in the information on the film version of 'The Remains of the Day', rather than the book itself. All I know is that he attended at least one of Lord Darlington's parties and praised Nazi Germany's Racial Purity Laws, leading to the dismissal of two women from Lord Darlington's employ - they were German-Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. So, presumably some time after the Nazis began implementing the Racial Purity Laws, which were really put into effect from the Summer of 1936 onwards. Wren was also a vegetarian. However, Lord Darlington himself is also somewhat sympathetic to the Nazis (in both book and film - the incident of the dismissal of the German-Jewish women occurs in both). Like the husband of Lady Bayswater, Lord Darlington survives the war; 'The Remains of the Day' is a kind of memoir of Lord Darlington's butler from the viewpoint of the late 1950s, after Lord Darlington's recent death.
So these two references, combined with the information from 'Endeavour', allow a certain amount of speculation as to the fates of various Fascist leaders of the '20s and '30s.
Roderick Spode - The Saviours of Britain (The Blackshorts) - hanged c. 1943
Everard Welby - The Brotherhood of British Freemen (The Greenshirts) - hanged c. 1943
Lord Horatio Bohun - Popular Socialist Party - hanged c. 1943? Or exiled to Argentina c. 1939?
Rud Whitlow - Popular Socialist Party, 'The Group' - fate unknown, possibly hanged c. 1943?
Sir Geoffrey Wren - organisation unknown - hanged c. 1943?
Lord Darlington - organisation unknown - died c. 1955.
Lord Bayswater - organisation unknown - died before 1967.
These snippets then can be the framework on which the 'British League of Fascists' can take shape. If the Greenshirts, the Blackshorts and the Popular Socialist Party came together around 1936 (perhaps it is Bohun's refusal to do this that leads to some younger and more ideologically-committed members of his party, organised as 'The Group', to oust him from the leadership) then this could indeed be the 'British League of Fascists'.
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