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Robert Gordon-Canning | |
---|---|
Born | Hartpury, Gloucestershire, England | 24 June 1888
Died | 4 January 1967 78) Hartpury, Gloucestershire, England | (aged
Occupations |
|
Political party | British Union of Fascists |
Spouse | |
Military career | |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/ | British Army |
Years of service | 1906–1925 |
Rank | Captain |
Unit | Royal Gloucestershire Hussars 10th (Prince of Wales's Own Royal) Hussars |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Awards | Military Cross |
Robert Cecil Gordon-Canning MC (24 June 1888 – 4 January 1967) [1] was a notable British fascist, anti-Semite [2] [3] [4] and supporter of Arab nationalist causes. He was briefly married to Australian actress Mary Maguire.
Gordon-Canning was born in Hartpury, Gloucestershire, the only son of William James Gordon-Canning, and his wife Clara, a daughter of Crawshay Bailey. [5] His father was the fourth son of Captain Patrick Robert Gordon, of the 78th Highlanders, son of William Gordon of Milrig, Ayrshire and descended from a branch of Clan Gordon. In 1848 Captain Gordon married Maria Canning of Hartpury, and added her surname to his own. [6] Gordon-Canning claimed, and it is sometimes stated as fact, that the poet Lord Byron, was his great-grandfather. [7]
He was educated at Eton, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars on 15 November 1906, [8] and was promoted to lieutenant in the 10th (Prince of Wales's Own Royal) Hussars on 14 March 1912. [9] He was appointed a temporary captain on 18 November 1914, [10] soon after the start of World War I, and this was confirmed on 15 May 1915. [11] In June 1917, Gordon-Canning was awarded the Military Cross, "for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty." [12] He was transferred to the General Reserve of Officers on 29 March 1919, [13] and eventually resigned his commission on 19 August 1925. [14]
After the war, Gordon-Canning became a supporter of Arab nationalist causes. He was involved in advocating for Moroccan independence during the Rif War and visited Morocco at least twice in the mid-1920s, the first time for the Red Cross and later to present independence views to the French government. [15] [16] He wrote several books of poetry at this time, including "Flashlights from Afar" (1920), "A Pagan Shrine" (1922) and "The Death of Akbar" (1923). [17] Australian diplomat R. G. Casey reported meeting Gordon-Canning in January 1926. He described him as "having come into the limelight lately owing to his having been the vehicle and mouthpiece for Abd el-Krim's 'peace' terms to the French. He has a shifty eye and is, I think, not altogether a disinterested peacemaker." Casey went on to describe "a very heated exchange of words about Morocco between [Gordon-]Canning and Sir Malcolm Robertson." Casey felt Gordon-Canning's approach combined "journalism with gentlemanly adventure." [18]
In 1929 Gordon-Canning visited Palestine and met with leaders of the Palestinian National Movement. He was a critic of British policy in Palestine. [19] From March to May 1930 the British police kept Margaret Milne Farquharson of the National Political League and Canning under observation to monitor their interactions with a delegation sent to London by the executive committee of the Palestine Arab Congress (ECPAC). [20]
In 1934 Gordon-Canning joined the British Union of Fascists (BUF). In October 1936 he was best man at the wedding of Sir Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford in Germany, [21] becoming the movement's expert on foreign affairs and given the role of 'Director of Overseas Policy'. He wrote regularly for fascist publications and developed the BUF slogan "Mind Britain's Business", which was also the title of one of his pamphlets. After a personal disagreement with Mosley, he left from the BUF in 1939, joining other fascist groups, including the British People's Party, The Link, and Archibald Ramsay's anti-Semitic group, the Right Club. Historian Brian Simpson notes Gordon-Canning prominent amongst those trying to fuse Britain's far–right groups at the outbreak of war. He hosted the first of a series of meetings of like minded personalities at his London flat on 19 September 1939. [2]
Gordon-Canning met Australian-born Hollywood actress Mary Maguire in June 1939. [22] Despite the 30-year age difference, they married in August 1939. Ironically, Gordon-Canning had previously written disparagingly of the influence and tone of Hollywood films. [23] In July 1940, Gordon-Canning was interned under Defence Regulation 18B [24] and was not released until 1943. [25] A child, Michael Gordon-Canning, was born of the union in February 1941, but died in infancy. [26] Gordon-Canning and Maguire were divorced in November 1944, [27] and Maguire remarried, moving back to the US in an effort to restart her acting career. [28]
At a sale of former German embassy property in 1945, Gordon-Canning attracted significant publicity when he purchased a large marble bust of Hitler for £500 (equivalent to £27,000 today). [29] Apparently by way of justification, he told reporters "Jesus, 2000 years ago was mocked, scorned and crucified. Today, He is a living force in the hearts and minds of millions of people." These comments, associating Hitler with Jesus, suggest he was associated with a small group called the League of Christian Reformers, who deified Hitler. [30] [31] [32] Journalist John Roy Carlson—a pseudonym of Avedis "Arthur" Boghos Derounian—claims Gordon-Canning told him he purchased the bust "to challenge the Jews. To prevent purchase by them..." [33]
Carlson also exposed Gordon-Canning's ongoing anti-Semitism in his 1951 book on subversive politics, Cairo to Damascus. Living after the war between his apartment in London and his farm in Sandwich, Kent, the book indicates Gordon-Canning was still in touch with other former internees and fascist sympathisers. Posing as an anti-Semite himself, Carlson records Gordon-Canning as saying, "I used to see Hitler in Munich and Berlin, and once had supper with Goebbels. Hitler was a fine man, a charming man. If three Hitlers had been allowed to rule the world – in Germany, Italy and England – we wouldn't be in the fix we are now." Carlson also writes of dining twice at Gordon-Canning's apartment in Cadogan Square in London with Barry Domvile and Archibald Ramsay. He states Gordon-Canning allowed his apartment to be used as a meeting place for Arab nationalists and claimed to be a close friend of Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam. "I am one of the few Englishmen the Arabs trust completely", he is alleged to have said. [33]
Gordon-Canning remarried in 1952. He died on 4 January 1967. [1]
In November 2002 the Security Service (MI5) files on Gordon-Canning (KV 2/877-878) were released into the public domain. [7]
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, was a British politician who rose to fame during the 1920s and 1930s when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. Mosley was the son of a baronet. He was a member of parliament and later founded and led the British Union of Fascists (BUF).
Unity Valkyrie Freeman-Mitford was a British socialite and member of the Mitford family known for her relationship with Adolf Hitler. Both in Great Britain and Germany, she was a prominent supporter of Nazism, fascism and antisemitism, and belonged to Hitler's inner circle of friends. When the United Kingdom and Germany went to war, she attempted suicide in Munich by shooting herself in the head. She survived but was badly injured. She was allowed safe passage back to England but never recovered from the extensive brain damage; she later died from meningitis related to the wound.
Diana, Lady Mosley, known as Diana Guinness between 1929 and 1936, was a British fascist, aristocrat, writer and editor. She was one of the Mitford sisters and the wife of Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists.
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.
Hastings William Sackville Russell, 12th Duke of Bedford was a British peer. He was born at Cairnsmore House, Minnigaff, Kirkcudbrightshire, the son of Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford, and his wife Mary Du Caurroy Tribe, the aviator and ornithologist. He was known for both his career as a naturalist and for his involvement in British far-right politics including his involvement as the co-founder of the British People's Party.
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.
Sword in the Desert is a 1949 American war film directed by George Sherman. It was the first American film to deal with the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and marked the first significant feature film role for Jeff Chandler.
Mary Maguire was an Australian-born actress who briefly became a Hollywood and British film star in the late 1930s.
David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, was a British peer, soldier, and landowner. He was the father of the Mitford sisters, in whose various novels and memoirs he is depicted.
A Life of Contrasts is the autobiography of Diana Mosley, one of the Mitford sisters, that was first published in 1977. In 2002, she released a revised edition of the book. Subtitles vary between UK and US editions, and the cover and title page.
British fascism is the form of fascism which is promoted by some political parties and movements in the United Kingdom. It is based on British ultranationalism and imperialism and had aspects of Italian fascism and Nazism both before and after World War II.
The Union Movement (UM) was a far-right political party founded in the United Kingdom by Oswald Mosley. Before the Second World War, Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) had wanted to concentrate trade within the British Empire, but the Union Movement attempted to stress the importance of developing a European nationalism, rather than a narrower country-based nationalism. That has caused the UM to be characterised as an attempt by Mosley to start again in his political life by embracing more democratic and international policies than those with which he had previously been associated. The UM has been described as post-fascist by former members such as Robert Edwards, the founder of the pro-Mosley European Action, a British pressure group and monthly newspaper.
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.
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The Battle of Carfax (1936) was a violent skirmish in the city of Oxford between the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and local anti-fascists, trade unionists, and supporters of the Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain. The battle took place inside Oxford's Carfax Assembly Rooms, a once popular meeting hall owned by Oxford City Council which was used for public events and located on Cornmarket Street.
Intimate friends like Diana Mitford called Gordon-Canning "Bobbie."