James Larratt Battersby
[6] In October 1934, The Blackshirt reported that he put a "well reasoned argument for Fascism in Britain" at a speech in Manchester, despite being heckled by a group of what the paper called "Reds".
[7] In February 1935, he spoke at Heaton Moor where he "analysed the international capitalist position" and argued that "Lancashire was being sacrificed to the interests that were exploiting backward peoples to choke the Western world with sweated goods".
[5] In June 1940, after the outbreak of the Second World War, Battersby was detained by the British government under the newly introduced Defence Regulation 18B and sent to Camp 020 at Latchmere House, London, with a number of other fascist sympathisers.
[12] He wrote a diary of his time there, which was published in 1947 as The Bishop Said Amen: On the Author's Experiences During Detention as a Pacifist, in which he complained that "everything possible was done to agitate, frustrate and torment us".
[11] In his memoirs, Charlie Watts, BUF district leader Westminster St. George's, remembered Battersby at Latchmere House and wrote of the meagre rations they all received and the threats from the guards to put them before a firing squad if they caused any trouble.
[13] Battersby was transferred to the Isle of Man, with other fascists, where he met and became a close friend of Captain Thomas Baker MC who professed to believe that Adolf Hitler was Christ returned and conducted religious rituals on that basis.
Baker was regarded by the camp authorities as an impostor more interested in the money of his fellow internees than the fascist cause, but Battersby took his views quite seriously and they contributed to his developing religious mania.
[15] There they held services in front of a special altar, guarded by two large dogs according to Macklin, during which they worshipped Adolf Hitler as Christ returned to rid the world of the Devil.
On 29 November 1945, The Daily Herald reported that a Mr A. Wilson had bought two swastika flags from the sale of the effects of the former German embassy in London and claimed he intended to give them to James Battersby.
[17] On 4 December 1945, Member of Parliament Christopher Peto asked the Home Secretary, Chuter Ede, to put an end to the Kingdom House group due to the feelings of revulsion it had created in the country.
In December 1945, Tom Driberg MP, in reference to the "recent raid", placed a question in the House of Commons to ask whether steps were being taken to "check Fascist provocation"?
[23] In 1952, Battersby disrupted the annual two-minute silence at the Cenotaph in London by shouting, according to police evidence, "This is the day of English judgement.
[26] Battersby, whose address was given as York Terrace, Manchester Road, Southport, was remanded in custody for one week and subsequently fined £10 with an alternative of two months imprisonment on the charge of using insulting behaviour.
[11] In former Hull BUF District Leader, John Charnley's autobiography Blackshirts and Roses (Brockingday Publications, London 1990), he wrote several pages relating to his friendship with Battersby, who he described as suffering from depression after the defeat of the German Army at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, and who was "transferred to the care of the medics...and after medical treatment released", his embarrassment at being greeted in the streets of post-war Southport by Battersby with the salutation Heil Hitler and his feelings of sadness, guilt and regret upon hearing of his death.
Battersby's youngest daughter Amanda K. Hale has written a novel about her father entitled Mad Hatter (Guernica Editions 2019) based on his involvement in fascist politics, religion and how his absence and death affected her and her family.
