The Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

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 continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. It grew out of the

Kibbo Kift The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift was a camping, hiking and handicraft group with ambitions to bring world peace. It was the first of three movements in England associated with the charismatic artist and writer John Hargrave (1894–1982). The Kindred ...

, which was established in 1920 as a more

craft A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...

-based alternative for youth to the

Boy Scouts Boy Scouts may refer to: * Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement. * Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement. * An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are t ...

.Peter Barberis, John McHugh, Mike Tyldesley, ''Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century'', Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000, p. 88

Development

The organisation was led by

John Hargrave John Gordon Hargrave (6 June 1894 – 21 November 1982), (woodcraft name 'White Fox'), was a prominent youth leader in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s, Head Man of the Kibbo Kift, described in his obituary as an 'author, cartoonist, inve ...

, who gradually turned the movement into a

paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

movement for

social credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he ...

. With its supporters wearing a

political uniform A number of political movements have involved their members wearing uniforms, typically as a way of showing their identity in marches and demonstrations. The wearing of political uniforms has tended to be associated with radical political belie ...

of green shirts, in 1932 it became known as the Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit and in 1935 it took its final name, the Social Credit Party. At this point

C. H. Douglas Major Clifford Hugh "C. H." Douglas, MIMechE, MIEE (20 January 1879 – 29 September 1952), was a British engineer and pioneer of the social credit economic reform movement. Education and engineering career C.H. Douglas was born in either Edg ...

, the originator of Social Credit and the ideological leader of the group, disavowed the Greenshirts as he did not support the establishment of a political party based on his ideas. The party published the newspaper ''Attack'' and was linked to a small number of incidents in which green-painted bricks were thrown through windows, including at 11 Downing Street, the official residence of the

Chancellor of the Exchequer The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of HM Treasury, His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Ch ...

. The leadership stated that they had formed the party after a series of independent candidates, espousing various forms of Social Credit, had sought election and they feared that this proliferation of interpretations could lead to the ideological message being confused and weakened. The party stood a single candidate in the 1935 general election, Wilfred Townend, who polled 11% of the vote in

Leeds South Leeds South was a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1867 to 1904. It was created by the British North America Act of 1867 which divided the County of Leeds into two ridings ...

. Despite this lack of success, Hargrave was invited by William Aberhart to take an advisory post in the Government of the Province of

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, that had been formed by the

Social Credit Party of Alberta Alberta Social Credit was a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada, that was founded on social credit monetary policy put forward by Clifford Hugh Douglas and on conservative Christian social values. The Canadian social credit movemen ...

. There were an additional two Independent candidates who stood advocating a National Dividend; Reginald Kenney in Bradford North and H.C. Bell in Birmingham Erdington. The party began to decline when political uniforms were banned by the

Public Order Act 1936 The Public Order Act 1936 (1 Edw. 8 & 1 Geo. 6 c. 6) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed to control extremist political movements in the 1930s such as the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Largely the work of Home Office ci ...

. Its activities were curtailed during

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and attempts to rebuild afterwards around a campaign against bread

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

had little success. Hargrave stood again in the 1950 general election, but after he gained only 551 votes, the party disbanded itself in 1951. In 1976, C. J. Hunt, treasurer of the Social Credit Political League, formed a new party under the old name. This short-lived group was based in

Bradford, West Yorkshire Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a p ...

, where it was active in local politics.

Monetary reform supporters

Notable supporters of Social Credit or "monetary reform" in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s included aircraft manufacturer A. V. Roe, scientist Frederick Soddy, author

Henry Williamson Henry William Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned with wildlife, English social history and ruralism. He was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 for his book ''Tarka ...

, military historian

J. F. C. Fuller Major-General John Frederick Charles "Boney" Fuller (1 September 1878 – 10 February 1966) was a senior British Army officer, military historian, and strategist, known as an early theorist of modern armoured warfare, including categorising ...

and Sir Oswald Mosley, in 1928-30 a member of the Labour Government but later the leader of 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, f ...

. Rolf Gardiner had published articles by both Hargrave and Douglas in his journal ''Youth'' although this was during the 1920s and he had no formal links to the Social Credit Party. In the early part of its existence Lord Tavistock had been loosely associated with the party although he would later lend his support to the British People's Party, as a result of which that group espoused elements of Social Credit.Robert Benewick, ''Political Violence and Public Order'', London: Allan Lane, 1969, p. 288

References

External links

Catalogue of the Youth Movement Archive (including the papers of the Social Credit Party
at th

of the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

.
Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit Archives
{{Authority control Social credit parties Defunct political parties in the United Kingdom Political parties established in 1935 Political parties established in 1965 Political parties disestablished in 1951 Political parties disestablished in 1978 Syncretic political movements Clothing in politics