Nesta Helen Webster (née Bevan, 24 August 1876 – 16 May 1960) was an English

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

who promoted antisemitic canards and revived theories about the

Illuminati The Illuminati (; plural of Latin ''illuminatus'', 'enlightened') is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically, the name usually refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on ...

.Who are the Illuminati? ''Independent on Sunday'' (London) 6 November 2005. She claimed that the secret society's members were occultists, plotting communist

world domination World domination (also called global domination or world conquest or cosmocracy) is a hypothetical power structure, either achieved or aspired to, in which a single political authority holds the power over all or virtually all the inhabitants ...

, through a Jewish cabal, the Masons and Jesuits. She blamed the group for events including the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, 1848 Revolution, the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and the

Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

. Her writing influenced later conspiracy theories and ideologies, including American

anti-communism Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...

(particularly the

John Birch Society The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, or libertarian ide ...

) and the

militia movement The American militia movement is a term used by law enforcement and security analysts to refer to a number of private organizations that include paramilitary or similar elements. These groups may refer to themselves as militia, unorganized milit ...

. In 1920, Webster became a contributor to '' The Jewish Peril'', a series of articles in the London ''

Morning Post ''The Morning Post'' was a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937, when it was acquired by ''The Daily Telegraph''. History The paper was founded by John Bell. According to historian Robert Darnton, ''The Morning Po ...

'' centered on the forged document ''

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' () or ''The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several ...

''. These articles were compiled and published in the same year in book form under the title of '' The Cause of World Unrest''. Webster claimed that the authenticity of the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' was an "open question". Prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Webster was involved in Fascist political groups in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Early years

Born in 1876, in the North London stately home Trent Park, Webster was the youngest daughter of

Robert Cooper Lee Bevan Robert Cooper Lee Bevan (8 February 180922 July 1890) was a British banker. He served as a senior partner of Barclays Bank. Early life Robert Cooper Lee Bevan was born on 8 February 1809 at Hale End, Walthamstow. He was the eldest son of fellow ...

and Emma Frances Shuttleworth. She was educated at Westfield College, now part of

Queen Mary, University of London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

. When she became an adult, she travelled around the world, visiting

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, Singapore, and Japan. In 1904, she married Arthur Templer Webster, Superintendent of the British Police in India.

Writing

Reading the letters of the Countess of Sabran, Webster believed herself to be a reincarnation of someone from the time of the

. Her first book on the subject of the French Revolution was ''The Chevalier de Boufflers'', followed by ''The French Revolution: A study in democracy'', in which she credited a conspiracy based around

Freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

as responsible for the

. She wrote that "the lodges of the German Freemasons and Illuminati were thus the source whence emanated all those anarchic schemes which culminated in

the Terror The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, ...

, and it was at a great meeting of the Freemasons in Frankfurt-am-Main, three years before the French Revolution began, that the deaths of

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

and

Gustavus III Gustav III (29 March 1792), also called ''Gustavus III'', was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of Adolf Frederick of Sweden and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia. Gustav was a vocal opponent of what h ...

of Sweden were first planned." Webster differentiated between "

Continental Freemasonry Continental Freemasonry, otherwise known as Liberal Freemasonry, Latin Freemasonry, and Adogmatic Freemasonry, includes the Masonic lodges, primarily on the European continent, that recognize the Grand Orient de France (GOdF) or belong to CLIPS ...

" and " British Freemasonry"; while the former was a subversive force in her mind, she considered the latter "an honourable association" and a "supporter of law, order and religion". Masons of the

United Grand Lodge of England The United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) is the governing Masonic lodge for the majority of freemasons in England, Wales and the Commonwealth of Nations. Claiming descent from the Masonic grand lodge formed 24 June 1717 at the Goose & Gridiron ...

supported her writings.

Political views

The publication of the antisemitic forgery ''

'' led Webster to believe that Jews were the driving force behind an international conspiracy, which in ''World Revolution: the Plot Against Civilization'' she developed into a "Judeo-Masonic" conspiracy behind international finance and responsible for the

Bolshevik revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

. Following this, she became the leading writer of ''The Patriot'', an antisemitic paper financed by Alan Percy.

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

praised her in a 1920 article entitled "Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People,"Quoted in Anthony Julius, '' Trials of The Diaspora, A History of Anti-Semitism in England'' (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 719, footnote 387. in which he wrote "This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

, and down to Trotsky (Russia),

Bela Kun Bela may refer to: Places Asia *Bela Pratapgarh, a town in Pratapgarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India *Bela, a small village near Bhandara, Maharashtra, India *Bela, another name for the biblical city Zoara * Bela, Dang, in Nepal *Bela, Janakpur, ...

(Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the

." Webster became involved in several far-right groups including the

British Fascists The British Fascists was the first political organisation in the United Kingdom to claim the label of fascist, although the group had little ideological unity apart from anti-socialism for much of its existence, and was strongly associated with c ...

,Thomas Linehan, ''British Fascism 1918-39: Parties, Ideology and Culture'', Manchester University Press, 2000, p. 46 the Anti-Socialist Union, The Link, and the British Union of Fascists., page 176 In her books, Webster argued that

Bolshevism Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, ...

was part of a much older and more secret, self-perpetuating conspiracy. She described three possible sources for this conspiracy:

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

, Pan-Germanism or "the occult power". She claimed that even if the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' were fake, they still described how Jews behave. Webster dismissed much of the persecution of the Jews by Nazi Germany as exaggeration and propaganda, having abandoned her anti-German views due to her initial admiration of Adolf Hitler. She came to oppose Hitler after the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ri ...

. Webster favoured "traditional roles for women and believed women should primarily influence men to be better men", but was frustrated by limits on the careers open to women, because she believed jobs should not just be for the money but should be purposeful professions. She saw marriage as limiting her choices, although her wedding financially allowed her to be a writer. She believed in raising women's education, and that the education they had been receiving was inferior to men's, making women less capable than they could be. She believed that, with better education, women would have substantial political capabilities to a degree considered "non-traditional", but without that education they'd be only as men imagined all women to be, the suppliers of men's and children's "material needs". " e implied ...

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

women and men might well be true equals." She believed there had been "women's supremacy ... npre-revolutionary France, when powerful women never attempted to compete directly with men, but instead drew strength from other areas where they excelled. She favoured women being allowed to vote and favoured keeping the British Parliamentary system for the benefit of both women and men, although doubted that voting would provide everything women needed, and thus did not join the suffrage movement. In the 1920s, "her views on women had become more conservative", and she made them secondary to her conspiracy writing.

Criticism

In February 1924,

Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (, ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and historian of the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. H ...

wrote to an American Jewish friend regarding one of Webster's publications which purported to expose evidence of Jewish conspiracy. Though Belloc's record of writing about Jews has itself attracted accusations of antisemitism, his contempt for Webster's own efforts was evident:

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of th ...

, whose novel ''

The Prague Cemetery ''The Prague Cemetery'' ( it, Il cimitero di Praga) is a novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It was first published in October 2010; the English translation by Richard Dixon appeared a year later. Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Ficti ...

'' recounts the development of the ''Protocols'', has characterised Webster's propagation of the document as evidence of a

delusional A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some o ...

tendency:

Works

''The Chevalier De Boufflers. A Romance of the French Revolution''
E.P. Dutton and Company, 1927. st Pub. London, John Murray, 1910. Reprints: 1916; 1920; 1924; 1925; E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1926
''Britain's Call to Arms: An Appeal to Our Women''.
London, Hugh Rees, 1914. * ''The Sheep Track. An Aspect of London Society''. London: John Murray (1914). * ''The French Revolution: A Study in Democracy''. London: Constable & Co. (1919). * ''The French Terror and Russian Bolshevism''. London: Boswell Printing & Publishing Co. (1920) .
''World Revolution. The Plot Against Civilization''
Small, Maynard & Company, 1921 st Pub. London, Constable & Co., 1921. Reprints: Constable, 1922; Chawleigh, The Britons Publishing Co., 1971; Sudbury, Bloomfield Books, 1990?]. ** ''The Revolution of 1848,'' Kessinger Publishing, 2010. * ''The Past History of the World Revolution. A Lecture'', Woolwich, Royal Artillery Institution, 1921. * with Kurt Kerlen, ''Boche and Bolshevik'', being a series of articles from the ''Morning Post of London'', reprinted for distribution in the United States, New York, Beckwith, 1923. Reprint: Sudbury, Bloomfield Books 990? .
''Secret Societies and Subversive Movements''
London, Boswell Printing & Publishing Co. London, 1924. Reprints: Boswell, 1928 and 1936; London,

The Britons 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 ...

Publishing Co., London, 1955 and 1964; Palmdale
Christian Book Club of America
and Sudbury and Sudbury, Bloomfield Books, 198 Kessinger Publishing, 2003. .Heckethorn, Charles William
''The Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries''Vol. 2
London: George Redway (1897). * ''The Socialist Network''. London: Boswell Printing & Publishing Co. (1926). ** Reprinted: Boswell (1933); Sudbury, Bloomfield (1989?); Noontide Press (2000). . * ''The Need for Fascism in Britain''. London: British Fascists, Pamphlet no. 17 (1926). * ''The Surrender of an Empire''. London: Boswell Printing & Publishing Co. (1931). ** Reprinted: Angriff Press (1972); Gordon Press Publishers (1973); Sudbury, Bloomfield Books (1990?). * ''The Origin and Progress of the World Revolution''. London: Boswell Printing & Publishing Co. (1932). * (with the pseudonym of Julian Sterne). ''The Secret of the Zodiac'', London: Boswell Printing & Publishing Co. (1933).
''Germany and England''.
London: Boswell Publishing Co. (1938). Revised and reprinted from ''The Patriot''.
''Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette Before the Revolution''.
London: Constable & Co. (1936). * ''Spacious Days: An Autobiography''. London: Hutchinson (1949). ** ''Crowded Hours: Part Two of her Autobiography''. The manuscript "disappeared from her publisher's office." It remains unpublished. * ''Marie-Antoinette Intime'' (in French). Paris:

La Table ronde LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

(1981). .

Selected articles

“Conservatism – A Living Creed,”
''The Patriot'', Vol. I, No. 1, 9 February 1922.
"Danton,"
The Patriot, Vol. II, No. 16, 22 May 1922.
"Saint Just,"
''The Patriot'', Vol. II, No. 18, 8 June 1922.
"A Few Terrorists,"
''The Patriot'', Vol. II, No. 19, 15 June 1922.
"The Marquis De Sade,"
''The Patriot'', Vol. II, No. 20, 22 June 1922.
“'Beppo' and Bakunin,"
''The Patriot'', Vol. II, No. 22, 6 July 1922.

Bibliography

* Gilman, Richard M., ''Behind "World Revolution": The Strange Career of Nesta H. Webster'', Ann Arbor, Insights Books, 1982. * Lee, Martha F., ''Nesta Webster: The Voice of Conspiracy'', in ''Journal of Women's History'', Vol. 17, No. 3, p. 81 ''ff.'' Fall, 2005. Biography.

References

External links

* *
The London Times Obituary
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Webster, Nesta Helen 1876 births 1960 deaths Alumni of Westfield College Bevan family English conspiracy theorists Anti-Masonry English non-fiction writers Protocols of the Elders of Zion English fascists British Union of Fascists politicians English feminists British women's rights activists English suffragists Place of death missing English people of Welsh descent Antisemitism in England Illuminati conspiracy theorists