| Battle of Holbeck Moor | ||||
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 Leeds Civic Trust plaque commemorating the event, during its unveiling on 29th September 2024 | ||||
| Date | 27 September 1936 | |||
| Location | ||||
| Caused by | Opposition to a fascist march through Leeds | |||
| Methods | Protest | |||
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| Part of a series on |
| Anti-fascism |
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The Battle of Holbeck Moor was a clash between the British Union of Fascists and various anti-fascist demonstrators that took place in Holbeck, Leeds, on 27 September 1936. [1]
Led by Oswald Mosley, the British Union of Fascists planned to march through the Leylands, a working-class Jewish quarter in Leeds. The Leeds City Watch Committee rejected their plans, fearing an outbreak of riots. [2] [3] Since the committee had not banned the fascists from marching elsewhere, they changed the route to march from Calverley Street (in the city centre) to Holbeck Moor.
In the days before the march, anti-fascists (primarily the Communist Party of Great Britain) set about countering the march, distributing flyers to workers in the engineering, textile and tailoring factories and on working-class housing estates, calling for a mobilisation against Mosley and his fascists. [1] [4] Due to differences, the Labour Party refused to attend and help the Communist Party. [1]
The night before the march, the Leylands was targeted with swastikas and slogans daubed on windows and doors, [5] and Jewish people were attacked in the streets. [6]
On the 27th of September, the blackshirts met at Calverley Street, and were greeted with a small amount of booing. They then marched down the Headrow, Briggate, Meadow Lane, Dewsbury Road, Trentham Street, Tempest Road and Beeston Road, before finishing at the side of Holbeck Moor near St Matthew’s School.
Mosley joined the march near the end, at Beeston Road. On arriving at Holbeck Moor, the fascists were met by 30,000 anti-fascist demonstrators led by the Leeds Communist Party branch. [1] With horse-mounted police forces shielding the fascists, Mosley climbed on top of a van and attempted to give a speech, but was quickly drowned out by protesters who had surrounded the van, singing the socialist song 'The Red Flag' repeatedly. [7]
The stand-off then became violent, with protesters pelting Mosley and the blackshirts with stones. The excitement and danger grew as mounted police then went into the crowd to arrest those throwing stones. Realising they were vastly outnumbered, the fascists retreated with great difficulty from the moor. [1]
During the clash, Mosley was hit twice with stones, [4] resulting in a gash under one eye. [5] This wound was still visible when he attempted to march at Cable Street in London a week later. [4] 40 blackshirts were also injured, [5] of which 14 were treated at an infirmary. [1]
The Battle reinforced opposition to fascism in the city, and the news of the battle spread through anti-fascist movements elsewhere in the UK, and helped serve as inspiration in the planning for the more famous Battle of Cable Street, which took place on 4 October 1936 in London. In the build-up to Cable Street, publications such as the Daily Worker proclaimed that “what happened in Leeds must happen in East London!” [8] [9] [10] [11]
The day after the march, Mosley made a statement in the Leeds Mercury: [1]
In a statement after the meeting, Sir Oswald Mosley said it was only a small number of men, organised for the purpose, who had tried to upset the meeting.
"Stones were aimed particularly at women Blackshirts," he said, "and the ambulances carrying the injured were stoned. Despite this organised violence the meeting was carried through according to schedule. "I thought the police handled the situation splendidly. I respect the decision of the Leeds Watch Committee not to interfere with our meeting."
— A Statement., Leeds Mercury 28th Sept 1936
The Leeds Mercury also published a list of names and addresses of the injured who received medical treatment, The participants were brought in from distant towns and cities such as Newcastle, Liverpool, Blackburn, Scunthorpe, Lincoln and Lancaster. Few were from Leeds. [4]
In January 2020, John Mann, Baron Mann cited the Battle in his maiden speech in the House of Lords, stating: [12]
"For 70 years my family lived alongside Holbeck Moor in those two-up, two-down, back-to-back terraces and cobbled streets. I cannot claim with certainty that one of them threw the cobble that put Mosley in hospital, but there were 30,000 heroes yet nothing recorded."
A blue plaque dedicated to the event was unveiled on 29 September 2024 at Holbeck Moor, to a crowd of over 300. [13] The plaque was commissioned by Stand Up To Racism and Leeds Civic Trust. [14] The unveiling was attended by Fabian Hamilton, Hilary Benn and Richard Burgon [13] as well as descendants of participants. [14] It is now fixed to the south wall of St Matthew's Church, facing the moor.
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, was a British aristocrat and politician who rose to fame during the 1920s and 1930s when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Harrow from 1918 to 1924 and for Smethwick from 1926 to 1931. He founded the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932 and led it until its forced disbandment in 1940.
The Battle of Cable Street was a series of clashes that took place at several locations in the East End of London, most notably Cable Street, on Sunday 4 October 1936. It was a clash between the Metropolitan Police, sent to protect a march by members of the British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Mosley, and various anti-fascist demonstrators including local trade unionists, communists, anarchists, British Jews, and socialist groups. The anti-fascist counter-demonstration included both organised and unaffiliated participants.
The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, following the start of the Second World War, the party was proscribed by the British government and in 1940 it was disbanded.
Arthur Kenneth Chesterton was a British journalist and political activist. From 1933 to 1938, he was a member of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Disillusioned with Oswald Mosley, he left the BUF in 1938. Chesterton established the League of Empire Loyalists in 1954, which merged with a short-lived British National Party in 1967 to become the National Front. He founded and edited the magazine Candour in 1954 as the successor of Truth, of which he had been co-editor.
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The Imperial Fascist League (IFL) was a British fascist political movement founded by Arnold Leese in 1929 after he broke away from the British Fascists. It included a blackshirted paramilitary arm called the Fascists Legion, modelled after the Italian Fascists. The group espoused antisemitism and the dominance of the 'Aryan race' in a 'Racial Fascist Corporate State', especially after Leese met Nazi Party propagandist Julius Streicher, the virulently racist publisher of Der Stürmer; the group later indirectly received funding from the Nazis. Although it had only between 150 and 500 members at maximum, its public profile was higher than its membership numbers would indicate.
Thomas P. Moran was a leading member of the British Union of Fascists and a close associate of Oswald Mosley. Initially a miner, Moran later became a qualified engineer. He joined the Royal Air Force at 17 and later served in the Royal Naval Reserve as an engine room artificer.
Alexander Raven Thomson, usually referred to as Raven, was a Scottish politician and philosopher. He joined the British Union of Fascists in 1933 and remained a follower of Oswald Mosley for the rest of his life. Thomson was considered to be the party's chief ideologue and has been described as the "Alfred Rosenberg of British fascism".
Robert Forgan was a British politician who was a close associate of Oswald Mosley.
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Wilfred Risdon was a British trade union organizer, a founder member of the British Union of Fascists and an antivivisection campaigner. His life and career encompassed coal mining, trade union work, First World War service with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), political and animal welfare activism.
The Battle of Stockton, took place on 10 September 1933 at the Market Cross in the High Street of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England. It was a clash between members of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and anti-fascist demonstrators from the small local Communist Party and National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM).
James Larratt Battersby was a British fascist and pacifist, and a member of the Battersby family of hatmakers of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. He was forced to retire from the family firm due to his politics and was interned by the British government during the Second World War along with other British fascists. During his detention he came to believe that Adolf Hitler was Christ returned, and after the war wrote The Holy Book and Testament of Adolf Hitler. He committed suicide by leaping into the paddle wheels of a ferry.
Robert Row (1915–1999) was an English fascist from Lancaster, a member of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) who was detained by the British government under Defence Regulation 18B during the Second World War. After the war, he wrote and edited British fascist publications and remained a believer in Mosley until his death.
The Friends of Oswald Mosley (FOM) is the last vestige of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) and its successors, the Union Movement and the Action Party.
John Warburton was an English fascist and press photographer. He was an assistant district leader for the Clapham branch of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) before the Second World War, and afterwards was a key member of the Union Movement, the founder editor of Comrade, and the senior Council member of Friends of Oswald Mosley.
The Battle of South Street was a riot that took place on 9 October 1934 in Worthing, Sussex, England. The riot took place as members of the British Union of Fascists and various anti-fascist protesters clashed following a meeting of Fascists at the Pier Pavilion. The riot involved a series of clashes along and close to the length of South Street from the Pier Pavilion and the Royal Arcade at its southern end to the junctions with Warwick Street and Market Street further north.
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