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Successor | Britons Publishing Society (incorporated 1922) (dissolved and defunct, 1975) |
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Formation | 1919 |
Founder | Henry Hamilton Beamish |
Dissolved | 1931 (chiefly limited to publishing house and its sponsorship) |
Type | Nationalism Antisemitism Racial discrimination Cultural conservatism |
Purpose | Political organisation and publisher |
Location | |
Key people | John Henry Clarke |
Part of a series on |
Antisemitism |
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The Britons was an English anti-Semitic and anti-immigration organisation founded in July 1919 by Henry Hamilton Beamish. The organisation published pamphlets and propaganda under imprint names: Judaic Publishing Co. and later The Britons, and (The) Britons Publishing Society. These entities mainly engaged in disseminating anti-Semitic literature and rhetoric in the United Kingdom and called for greater nationalism, being considered academically among the forefront of British Fascists. Imprints under the first label exist for 1920, 1921, and 1922.
According to historian Sharman Kadish, The Britons was "the most extreme group disseminating anti-Semitic propaganda in the early 1920s - indeed the first organisation set up in Britain for this express purpose." [1]
The group was founded in London in 1919 by Henry Hamilton Beamish, who had developed an antisemitic worldview while living in South Africa. Beamish wrote The Britons' constitution and the group was launched at a meeting of 14 people chaired by John Henry Clarke. [2] The group held monthly meetings in London and launched its own publishing imprint, The Judaic Publishing Company Ltd., which was to be the source of much anti-Semitic and conspiratorial literature. [2] Beamish became involved with the Silver Badge Party but by 1919 had left Britain altogether after facing damages for a libellous poster against Sir Alfred Mond and, becoming a vehement anti-Semite, progressing to Nazi propagandist. [3]
The Britons continued under John Henry Clarke, an advocate of homeopathy, as Chairman and Vice-President (with the Southern Rhodesia-based Beamish continuing as president) from the formation of the group until his death in 1931. Clarke helped the party to work with the right wing of the Conservative Party, and to attract such members as Arthur Kitson and Brigadier-General R. B. D. Blakeney.[ citation needed ]
The group claimed that its only aim was to get rid of all the Jews in Britain by forcing them to emigrate to Palestine. Only those who could prove English blood up to grandparent level were allowed membership (despite the name 'Britons'). Group activities centred mainly on publishing, with journals such as Jewry Uber Alles , The British Guardian and The Investigator (which began publishing in 1937 and used a swastika as its emblem and regular motto 'For Crown and Country, Blood and Soil). These featured contributions from some of the most fanatical and notorious anti-Semites of the time, including Joseph Banister and George Clarke, 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe, as well as translations of work by Nazi race theorist Alfred Rosenberg. [4]
They also published anti-Semitic books including a translation, allegedly by Victor E. Marsden, of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion . It has been observed that Marsden had died on 28 October 1920; the Britons ceased publication of the first imprint which Norman Cohn states came out in 1921. However, the earliest imprint bearing the name of Marsden held by the British Library is dated 1922 and whose online catalogue shows that it was imprinted by the Britons Publishing Society. No scholarly work exists on Marsden, a one-time correspondent for The Morning Post , and there has not yet been an accounting of how precisely his name came to be associated with the publication of The Protocols. In August 1921, the text was conclusively exposed by Philip Graves of The Times as plagiarism. The translation used was made by George Shanks for Eyre & Spottiswoode. Researcher Nick Toczek claims that for the sum of £30, The Britons purchased a set of printing plates and the publishing rights to The Jewish Peril: The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion from that company. [5] The Britons continued to publish and sell The Protocols for the rest of their existence, eventually producing 85 editions. [6] Known from 1922 onwards as the Britons Publishing Company, this separate publishing arm produced material for such groups as the British Union of Fascists and other UK anti-Semitic and fascist organizations until 1975.[ citation needed ]
Short of funding, The Britons was little more than the board of the publishing "house" after Clarke's death in 1931, soon run by solicitor James D. Dell until 1949. [7] It was largely inactive during the Second World War. It was later revived first by Anthony Gittens and then by A. F. X. Baron. The board launched a new anti-Semitic, far-right publication Free Britain, which featured contributions from Arnold Leese and Colin Jordan, [8] but was largely defunct as a political organization by the 1950s.[ citation needed ]
Antisemitism has increased greatly in the Arab world since the beginning of the 20th century, for several reasons: the dissolution and breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; European influence, brought about by Western imperialism and Arab Christians; Nazi propaganda and relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world; resentment over Jewish nationalism; the rise of Arab nationalism; and the widespread proliferation of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.
Arnold Spencer Leese was a British fascist politician. Leese was initially prominent as a veterinary expert on camels. A virulent anti-Semite, he led his own fascist movement, the Imperial Fascist League, and was a prolific author and publisher of polemics both before and after the Second World War.
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.
The Nordic League (NL) was a far-right organisation in the United Kingdom from 1935 to 1939 that sought to serve as a co-ordinating body for the various extremist movements whilst also seeking to promote Nazism. The League was a private organisation that did not organise any public events.
Nesta Helen Webster was an English author who revived conspiracy theories about the Illuminati. She claimed that the secret society's members were occultists, plotting communist world domination, through a Jewish cabal, the Masons and Jesuits. She blamed the group for events including the French Revolution, 1848 Revolution, the First World War, and the Bolshevik Revolution. Her writing influenced later conspiracy theories and ideologies, including American anti-communism and the militia movement.
Lucien Wolf was an English Jewish journalist, diplomat, historian, and advocate of rights for Jews and other minorities. While Wolf was devoted to minority rights, he opposed Jewish nationalism as expressed in Zionism, which he regarded an incentive to anti-Semitism. In 1917 he co-founded the anti-Zionist League of British Jews.
Sir George Sydenham Clarke, 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator.
John Henry Clarke was an English classical homeopath. He was also, arguably, the highest profile anti-Semite of his era in Great Britain. He led The Britons, an anti-Semitic organisation. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he received his medical degree in 1877.
Henry Hamilton Beamish was a leading British antisemitic journalist and the founder of The Britons in 1919, the first organisation set up in Britain for the express purpose of diffusing antisemitic propaganda. After a conviction for libel the same year, Beamish fled Britain and began a career of touring speaker, travelling to Germany, Canada, the United States or Japan in order to promote antisemitic and fascist causes. In 1923, he spoke at one of Adolf Hitler's meetings in Munich, and met Julius Streicher in Nuremberg in 1937. Beamish settled in Southern Rhodesia in 1938, where he served as an independent member of the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly between 1938 and 1940. During the Second World War, he was interned for three years due to his pro-Nazi sentiments. Upon his release, Beamish returned to England and died in March 1948, aged 74.
Britons Publishing Society, founded in 1923, was an offshoot of The Britons. According to scholar Gisela C. Lebzelter, The Britons split because:
... internal disagreements proved paralysing. Seven members were excluded in November 1923, and three executives members, J. H. Clarke, the famous British homeopath, R. T. Cooper and W. A. Peters, seceded to establish 'The Britons Publishing Society'.
George Shanks (1896–1957) was an expatriate Briton born in Moscow and was the first translator of Protocols of Zion from Russian into English. He was also a founding member of Radio Normandy. George Shanks was the son of Henry Shanks, a well-known British merchant who resided in Moscow. Henry Shanks managed the family firm of Shanks & Bolin, Magasin Anglais established by his father James Steuart Shanks in 1852. As a result of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the family lost their business and home and were forced to return to London. It is believed that the translation was completed during this period in London. His identity was not discovered until 1978; initially, it was believed that Victor E. Marsden was the translator, as his name came to be associated with the British English language translation of the Protocols in pamphlet or booklet form soon after he died in 1920.
Carl William Ackerman was an American journalist, author and educational administrator, the first dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. In 1919, as a correspondent of the Public Ledger of Philadelphia, he published the first excerpts of an English translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion but changed the text so that it appeared to be a Bolshevik tract.
Gisela C. Lebzelter is an author, historian, and scholar, and an expert on British fascism and antisemitism. Scholars who study British fascism and antisemitism frequently cite her 1978 book Political Anti-Semitism in England 1918-1939—a revision of her thesis submitted to St Antony's College, Oxford.
The Singerman list is a numeric cataloging system for antisemitica items, as defined by the 1982 bibliographic listing, Antisemitic Propaganda: an annotated bibliography and research guide by Robert Singerman. The list consists of a chronological listing, by year at least, of books, pamphlets, and other sorts of texts, with full bibliographic information. In addition each item is assigned a unique 4-digit number with a short, paragraph-length, annotation. For example, "Singerman 0121" identifies uniquely a particular imprint of The Jewish Bolshevism.
Judaic Publishing Co. was an antisemitic publishing entity controlled by Henry Hamilton Beamish, an Irish-born antisemite. In 1920 Beamish took over the publication of The Jewish Peril from Eyre & Spottiswoode, and published it under the imprint of The Britons. Subsequently, this entity was effectively merged by Beamish and his associates into the Britons Publishing Company, which continued disseminating antisemitic propaganda. The British Library has three imprints by this entity which are listed below.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fabricated text purporting to detail a Jewish plot for global domination. Largely plagiarized from several earlier sources, it was first published in Imperial Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. It played a key part in popularizing belief in an international Jewish conspiracy.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan to achieve global domination. The text was fabricated in the Russian Empire, and was first published in 1903. While there is continued popularity of The Protocols in nations from South America to Asia, since the defeat of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in World War II, governments or political leaders in most parts of the world have generally avoided claims that The Protocols represent factual evidence of a real Jewish conspiracy. The exception to this is the Middle East, where a large number of Arab and Muslim regimes and leaders have endorsed them as authentic. Past endorsements of The Protocols from Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, Iraqi President Arif, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, among other political and intellectual leaders of the Arab world, are echoed by 21st century endorsements from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, and Hamas, to the education ministry of Saudi Arabia.
The international Jewish conspiracy or the world Jewish conspiracy has been described as "one of the most widespread and long-running conspiracy theories". Although it typically claims that a malevolent, usually global Jewish circle, referred to as International Jewry, conspires for world domination, the theory's content is extremely variable, which helps explain its wide distribution and long duration. It was popularized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century especially by the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Among the beliefs that posit an international Jewish conspiracy are Jewish Bolshevism, Cultural Marxism, Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory, White genocide conspiracy theory and Holocaust denial. The Nazi leadership's belief in an international Jewish conspiracy that it blamed for starting World War II and controlling the Allied powers was key to their decision to launch the Final Solution.
Bessie Pullen-Burry was a British novelist, geographer, explorer, suffragist, and anti-Semite.