Sir Oswald Mosley

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet /ɒzwɔːld.ˈmoʊzli/ (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). 

Political party

Conservative (1918–1922)
Independent (1922–1924)
Labour / I.L.P (1924–1931)
New Party (1931–1932)
British Union (1932–1940)
Union Movement (1948–1973)
National Party of Europe(1962–1980)

Spouse(s)

Lady Cynthia Mosley (1920–1933)
Diana Mitford (1936–1980)

Children

Vivien Mosley (deceased)
Nicholas Mosley
Michael Mosley
(Oswald) Alexander Mosley
Max Mosley

He was a Member of Parliament for Harrow from 1918 to 1924, for Smethwick from 1926 to 1931 and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Labour Government of 1929–31, a position he resigned due to his disagreement with the Labour Government's unemployment policies. He then formed theNew Party which merged with the BUF (which included the Blackshirts) in 1932.

Although relatively well funded, Mosley often overemphasized intellectual fine points that appealed to few voters, opposed free trade and associated closely with Nazi Germany. Mosley was interned in 1940 and the BUF wasproscribed. He was released in 1943, and politically disillusioned in Britain he moved abroad in 1951, spending most of the remainder of his life in France.

Family and early life

Mosley was the eldest of the three sons of Sir Oswald Mosley (5th Baronet) (1873–1928) and Katharine Maud Edwards-Heathcote (1874–1950).[n 2] His branch of the Mosley family was the Anglo-Irish family at its most prosperous, landowners in Staffordshire seated at Rolleston Hall nearBurton-upon-Trent. In a senior aristocratic Georgian intermarriage, his father was a third cousin to the Earl of Strathmore, father of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyonwho served alongside King George VI as Queen (of the United Kingdom).

Mosley was born on 16 November 1896 at 47, Hill Street, Mayfair,Westminster. After his parents separated he was brought up by his mother, who went to live at Betton Hall near Market Drayton, and his paternal grandfather, Sir Oswald Mosley, 4th Baronet. Within the family and among intimate friends, he was always called "Tom". He lived for many years at Apedale Hall in Newcastle-under-Lyme also in Staffordshire.

On 11 May 1920 he married Lady Cynthia Curzon (known as "Cimmie"), (1898–1933), second daughter of George Curzon, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, (1859–1925), Viceroy of India, 1899–1905, Foreign Secretary, 1919–1924, and Lord Curzon's first wife, the U.S. mercantile heiress, the formerMary Victoria Leiter.

Lord Curzon had to be persuaded that Mosley was a suitable husband, as he suspected Mosley was largely motivated by social advancement in Conservative Partypolitics and her inheritance. The 1920 wedding took place in the Chapel Royal inSt James's Palace in London — arguably the social event of the year. The hundreds of guests included European royalty such as King George V and Queen Mary; and Leopold III and Astrid of Sweden, future King and Queen of Belgium.

He had three children by Cynthia:

• Vivien Mosley (1921–2002), who married on 15 January 1949 Desmond Francis Forbes Adam (1926–58), educated at Eton College and atKing's College, University of Cambridge, by whom she had two daughters
• Nicholas Mosley (later 7th Baronet of Ancoats; born 1923), a successful novelist who wrote a biography of his father and edited his memoirs for publication; and
• Michael Mosley (born 1932), unmarried and without issue.

During this marriage he had an extended affair with his wife's younger sister Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, and with their stepmother, Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, the U.S.-born second wife and widow of Lord Curzon of Kedleston. He succeeded to the Baronetcy of Ancoats on his father's death in 1928, which entitles the current holder to the prefix styleSir.

Cynthia died of peritonitis in 1933, after which Mosley married his mistress Diana Guinness, née Mitford (1910–2003). They married in secret in Germany on 6 October 1936 in the Berlin home of Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Adolf Hitler was one of the guests.

By Diana, he had two sons:

• Oswald Alexander Mosley (born 1938), father of Louis Mosley (born 1983); and
• Max Mosley (born 1940), who was president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for 16 years.

 

 

 

Mosley spent large amounts of his private fortune on the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and tried to establish it on a firm financial footing by means including an attempt to negotiate, through Diana, with Adolf Hitler for permission to broadcast commercial radio to Britain from Germany. Mosley reportedly struck a deal in 1937 with Francis Beaumont, heir to the Seigneur of Sark, to set up a privately owned radio station on Sark.

Military service

He was educated at West Downs School and Winchester College. In January 1914 he entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but was expelled in June for a "riotous act of retaliation" against a fellow student.[7]During the First World War he was commissioned into the 16th The Queen's Lancers and fought on the Western Front. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as an observer, but while demonstrating in front of his mother and sister he crashed, which left him with a permanent limp. He returned to thetrenches before the injury was fully healed, and at the Battle of Loos he passed out at his post from pain. He spent the remainder of the war at desk jobs in the Ministry of Munitions and in the Foreign Office.

Member of Parliament

By the end of the First World War, Mosley had decided to go into politics as a Conservative Member of Parliament, as he had no university education or practical experience due to the War. He was 21 years of age and had not fully developed his own politics. He was driven by, and in Parliament spoke of, a passionate conviction to avoid any future war, and this seemingly motivated his career. Largely because of his family background and war service, local Conservative and Labour Associations preferred Mosley in several constituencies — a vacancy near the family estates seemed to be the best prospect. However, he was unexpectedly selected for Harrow first. In the general election of 1918he faced no serious opposition and was elected easily. He was the youngest member of the House of Commons to take his seat, though Joseph Sweeney, an abstentionist Sinn Féin member, was younger. He soon distinguished himself as an orator and political player, one marked by extreme self-confidence, and he made a point of speaking in the House of Commons without notes.

Fascism

After his failure in 1931 Mosley went on a study tour of the "new movements" of Italy's Benito Mussolini and other fascists, and returned convinced that it was the way forward for Britain. He was determined to unite the existing fascist movements and created the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932. The BUF was protectionist, strongly anti-communist, and nationalistic to the point of advocating authoritarianism. It claimed membership as high as 50,000, and had the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror among its earliest (though short-lived) supporters. The Mirror piece was a guest article by Daily Mail owner Viscount Rothermere and an apparent one-off; despite these briefly warm words for the BUF, the paper was so vitriolic in its condemnation of European fascism that Nazi Germany added the paper's directors to a hit-list in the event of a successful Operation Sea Lion. The Mail continued to support the BUF until the Olympia rally in June 1934.

John Gunther described Mosley in 1936 as "strikingly handsome ... probably the best orator in England. His personal magnetism is very great". Among Mosley's supporters at this time were the novelist Henry Williamson, military theorist J. F. C. Fuller and the future "Lord Haw Haw", William Joyce.

Mosley had found problems with disruption of New Party meetings, and instituted a corps of black-uniformed paramilitary stewards, nicknamed blackshirts. The party was frequently involved in violent confrontations, particularly with Communist and Jewish groups and especially in London.[20] At a large Mosley rally at Olympia on 7 June 1934 mass brawling broke out when hecklers were removed by Blackshirts, resulting in bad publicity.[19] This and the Night of the Long Knives in Germany led to the loss of most of the BUF's mass support. The party was unable to fight the 1935 general election.

In October 1936 Mosley and the BUF attempted to march through an area with a high proportion of Jewish residents, and violence resulted between local and nationally organised protesters trying to block the march and police trying to force it through, since called the Battle of Cable Street. At length Sir Philip Game thePolice Commissioner disallowed the march from going ahead and the BUF abandoned it.

Mosley continued to organise marches policed by the Blackshirts, and the government was sufficiently concerned to pass the Public Order Act 1936, which, amongst other things, banned political uniforms and quasi-military style organisations and came into effect on 1 January 1937. In the London County Council elections in 1937 the BUF stood in three wards in East London (some former New Party seats), its strongest areas, polling up to a quarter of the vote and Mosley made most of the Blackshirt employees redundant, some of whom then defected from the party with William Joyce. As the European situation moved towards war, the BUF began to nominate Parliamentary by-election candidates and launched campaigns on the theme of Mind Britain's Business. After the outbreak of war he led the campaign for a negotiated peace, a stance popularly acceptable but after the invasion of Norway and the commencement of aerial bombardment (see The Blitz) overall public opinion of him turned to hostility. In mid May 1940 Mosley was nearly wounded by assault.

Internment

On 23 May 1940 Mosley, who was then mostly focused on negotiated peace advocacy, was interned under Defence Regulation 18B along with most active fascists in Britain. The BUF was proscribed later that year. His wife Diana Mitford was also interned, shortly after the birth of their son Max; they lived together for most of the war in a house in the grounds of Holloway prison.

Mosley used the time to read extensively on classical civilisations. Mosley refused visits from most BUF members, but on 18 March 1943 Dudley and Norah Elam (who had been released by then) accompanied Unity Mitford to see her sister Diana. Mosley agreed to be present because he mistakenly believed Diana and Unity's mother Lady Redesdale was accompanying Unity.

The Mosleys were released in November 1943, when Mosley was suffering with phlebitis, and spent the rest of the war under house arrest. On his release from prison he stayed with his sister-in-law Pamela Mitford, followed shortly by a stay at the Shaven Crown Hotel in Shipton-under-Wychwood. He then purchased Crux Easton House, near Newbury, with Diana. He and his wife were the subject of much media attention. The war ended what remained of Mosley's political reputation.

Post-war politics

After the war Mosley was contacted by his former supporters and persuaded to return to participation in politics. He formed the Union Movement, which called for a single nation-state to cover the continent of Europe (known as Europe a Nation) and later attempted to launch a National Party of Europe to this end. The Union Movement's meetings were often physically disrupted, as Mosley's meetings had been before the war, and largely by the same opponents. This led to Mosley's decision, in 1951, to leave Britain and live in Ireland. He later moved to Paris. Of his decision to leave, he said, "You don't clear up a dungheap from underneath it."

Shortly after the 1958 Notting Hill race riots, Mosley briefly returned to Britain in order to stand in the 1959 general electionat Kensington North. Mosley led his campaign stridently on an anti-immigration platform, calling for forced repatriation of Caribbean immigrants as well as a prohibition upon mixed marriages. Mosley's final share of the vote was 8.1%.

In 1961 he took part in a debate at University College London about Commonwealth immigration, seconded by a youngDavid Irving.[28] He returned to politics one last time, contesting the 1966 general election at Shoreditch and Finsbury, and receiving 4.6% of the vote. After this, Mosley retired and moved back to France, where he wrote his autobiography,My Life (1968).

In 1977, by which time he was suffering from Parkinson's disease, he was nominated as a candidate for Rector of the University of Glasgow in which election he polled over 100 votes but finished bottom of the poll.

Death and legacy

Mosley died on 3 December 1980 in his Orsay home, was cremated in Paris and his ashes were scattered on the pond at Orsay. His papers are housed at the University of Birmingham's Special Collections.

In popular culture

• Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point features Everard Webley, a similar character to 1920s Mosley (published before Mosley left the Labour Party)

• In H. G. Wells's 1939 novel The Holy Terror, a Mosley-like character is Lord Horatio Bohun, the leader of an organization called the Popular Socialist Party, who is principally motivated by vanity and is removed from leadership and sent packing to Argentina.

• "Sir Roderick Spode" in P.G. Wodehouse's novels parodies Mosley.

Mosley's attempts to promote his views after the war resulted in continued critical reaction:

• In 2006 he was selected by the BBC History Magazine as the 20th century's worst Briton.[30]

• In 1997 Channel 4 produced a mini-series about him called Mosley, starring Jonathan Cake.

• Widespread approbative 1980 newspaper obituaries of Mosley were lampooned by the satirical television programmeNot The Nine O'Clock News in the song "Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley" by Peter Brewis, which featured Mel Smith,Pamela Stephenson and Griff Rhys Jones all dressed as Nazi skinheads, singing his eulogy, interweaving some of the more positive remarks of newspapers from all sides of the political spectrum, including The Times and The Guardian.

• A part-fictionalized dramatization of Mosley, the BUF, and Battle of Cable Street appears in the BBC Wales-produced BBC revival of Upstairs, Downstairs (2010) — set in 1936.

• The original version of the Elvis Costello song "Less Than Zero" is an attack on Mosley and his politics, but US listeners assumed that the "Mr Oswald" referred to was assassin Lee Harvey Oswald — so Costello obligingly wrote an alternative lyric to refer to Kennedy's assassin.

• In an episode of the British television series Foyle's War entitled "The White Feather" (2002), Mosley is referred to as a fascist and Nazi sympathizer and his detention is noted.