The January Club was a discussion group founded in 1934 by
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...
to attract
Establishment
Establishment may refer to:
* The Establishment, a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization
* The Establishment (club), a 1960s club in London, England
* The Establishment (Pakistan), political terminology for the military ...
support for the movement known as the
British Union of Fascists
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, fo ...
.
The Club was under the effective control of
Robert Forgan
Robert Forgan (10 March 1891 – 8 January 1976) was a British politician who was a close associate of Oswald Mosley.
Early life and medical career
The Scottish-born Forgan was the son of a Church of Scotland minister.Dorril, p. 151 Educated up ...
, working on behalf of the BUF. The founders as identified by
MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
[Stephen Dorril, ''Blackshirt'' (2006), p.258.] were Forgan,
Donald Makrill,
Francis Yeats-Brown
Major Francis Charles Claydon Yeats-Brown, DFC (15 August 1886 – 19 December 1944) was an officer in the British Indian army and the author of the memoir '' The Lives of a Bengal Lancer'', for which he was awarded the 1930 James Tait Black ...
and
H. W. Luttman-Johnson. Members of the January Club included Wing-Commander
Sir Louis Greig;
Lord Erskine
The Lordship of Parliament of Erskine (Lord Erskine) was created around 1426 for Sir Robert Erskine. The sixth lord was created Earl of Mar in 1565, with which title (and the earldom of Kellie) the lordship then merged.
Lords Erskine (c. 1426)
* ...
, a
Conservative and Unionist MP and assistant Government whip;
Lord William Montagu-Douglas-Scott, brother of the
8th Duke of Buccleuch and Conservative and Unionist MP; and (according to
Nigel H. Jones
Nigel Jones (born 1951) is a British journalist and biographer.
Early life
Born in Woking, Surrey, he spent childhood in Surrey, Sussex, Kent and rural Yorkshire. He was educated at schools in the Isle of Wight and North Wales. His journalistic ...
' biography of Mosley)
Lord and Lady Russell of Liverpool.
Sir
Charles Petrie, who participated in the club's early stages, discusses the club at some length (and offers criticisms of Mosley's methods) in his 1972 memoir, ''A Historian Looks at his World''. The poet and editor
John Collings Squire was another author initially involved with the club but "found the atmosphere uncongenial before long". Petrie's memoir also mentions Yeats-Brown as soon complaining: "The January Club will probably collapse; anyway I'm not going to the next meeting. Mosley is not human enough."
References
{{reflist
Sources
Barberis, Peter (et al), ''Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations''Retrieved July 2012
Jones, Nigel, ''Mosley''Retrieved July 2012
External links
Fascism in the United Kingdom