British Fascists - Structure and Membership

Structure and Membership

They were formed in 1923 by Miss Rotha Lintorn-Orman in the aftermath of Benito Mussolini's March on Rome, and originally operated under the Italian-sounding name British Fascisti. Despite their name the group had a poorly defined ideological basis at their beginning, being brought into being more by a fear of left-wing politics than a devotion to fascism. The ideals of the Boy Scout movement, with which many early members had also been involved in their younger days, also played an important role as the British Fascisti wished, according to General R.B.D. Blakeney, to "uphold the same lofty ideas of brotherhood, service and duty". At its formation at least the British Fascisti was positioned in the same right-wing conservative camp as the likes of the British Empire Union and the Middle Class Union and shared some members with these groups. The group had a complex structure, being presided over by both an Executive Council and Fascist Grand Council of nine men, with County and Area Commanders controlling districts below this. Districts contained a number of companies, which in turn were divided into troops with each troop made of three units and unit containing seven members under a Leader. A separate structure existed along similar lines for the group's sizeable female membership. The group became notorious for its inflated claims of membership (including the ridiculous claim that it had 200,000 members in 1926), although at its peak from 1925 to 1926 it had a membership of several thousand.

Early membership largely came from high society, and included a number of women amongst its ranks, such as Dorothy Viscountess Downe, Lady Sydenham of Combe, Baroness Zouche and Nesta Webster. Men from the nobility also joined, such as Lord Glasgow, the Marquess of Ailesbury, Lord Ernest Hamilton, Baron de Clifford, Earl Temple of Stowe, Arthur Henry Hardinge and Lord Garvagh, who served as first President of the movement. High-ranking members of the armed forces also occupied leading roles in the group, with General Blakeney joined by the likes of General Ormonde Winter, Brigadier-General T. Erskine Tulloch, Admiral John Armstrong and Colonel Sir Charles Rosdew Burn, who combined a role on the Grand Council of the British Fascisti with that of Conservative Party MP for Torquay. Serving military personnel were eventually banned from joining the group by the Army Council however. At a more rank and file level the group attracted a membership of middle and working class young men who spent much of their time in violent confrontations with similar men involved in the Communist Party of Great Britain, with William Joyce an archetype of this sort of low-level member. This domination by disgruntled members of the peerage and high-ranking officers meant that certain concerns not normally associated with the demands of fascism, such as anger at the decline of the large landowning agricultural sector, the high levels of estate taxation and death duties and the dearth of high-ranking civilian occupations suitable for the status of officers, were a central feature of the political concerns advanced by the British Fascisti.