“LET THEM HAVE IT LADS!”
The Battle of Holbeck Moor and Antifascism in Leeds, 1936
The dramatic events of the Battle of Holbeck Moor in Leeds on
27 September 1936 have been brought back to life in Michael Agboh-Davison’s new
book.
“LET THEM HAVE IT LADS!” is a direct quote from anti-fascist
Herbert Broxup as he threw a stone into the fascist supporters that had, by marching and rallying to listen
to Blackshirt leader Oswald Mosley, intended to intimidate the local Jewish
community, which at around 25,000 was the third largest after London and
Manchester in Britain. For years Leeds had been a major target for the fascists
with fascist graffiti and posters everywhere.
Cloth
finisher Broxup, married with a young son, was to be bound over for 12 months.
He was required to pay £5, fined £2 for disorderly conduct and also ordered to
find a surety of £5 to avoid 3 weeks imprisonment. Being lowly paid then
finding the funds would have been a struggle. Broxup was one of only three men
arrested on a day of considerable disorder when the police focussed on crowd
control.
Another stone thrower, unemployed labourer
Walter Hodgson, was identified as being responsible for hitting Mosley in the
face with his projectile but the head of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) refused
to press charges. Hodgson was to die in the cause of antifascism when serving
with the 2nd Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment in France in 1940.
The injury
to Mosley was serious enough that it was still noticeable exactly a week later
when his fascist forces reassembled in London in order to again attempt to march through an area consisting of
many Jewish people. Cable Street though proved a step too far as hundreds of
thousands of people including Jews, Irish immigrants, Communists, Socialists
and trade unionists refused to be battered off the streets of East London by
the Metropolitan Police that was determined to facilitate the BUF parade. Fascists
limped off home well beaten and never really recovered thereafter.
The
application by the BUF for a Leeds outdoor rally on Holbeck Moor was to be
proceeded by a march just past the historic centre of the Jewish Community who
the fascists were blaming for the extreme poverty being endured by the entire
working class at the time. In the event the march was rerouted after negotiations
between the BUF and the police. Around 1,000 Blackshirts, many from outside
Leeds, were jeered when they set off from Calverley Street on the 3-mile march
to the moor. There was though no physical opposition.
Meanwhile a
similar size counter demonstration, organised by the Communist Party of Great
Britain (CPGB), was being made ready to start at Holbeck Moor half an hour
before their opponents were due to arrive.
Although
their community leaders had urged them not to attend, young Jews were not
willing to allow the fascists to go unopposed. (1) And whilst Leeds Labour
Party also refused to officially mobilise against Mosley, a former Labour MP,
many of their members turned up on the day.
The size of
the Holbeck Moor crowd grew quickly. Agboh-Davison, as is the case throughout
his work, which is tempered, relies on the contemporary evidence from the time
and is unable to give an exact number. However, 50,000 seems a reasonable
estimate – a huge number considering Leeds had a total population of 650,000.
The figure is even more remarkable considering there seems to have been no
advance newspaper adverts and mentions of the rally only began 48 hours
previously. As to exactly how many came to oppose Mosley it cannot be said.
Undoubtedly some would have been sympathetic to him.
And if his event had gone off successfully then it is reasonable to assume some would have joined his organisation.
When the
fascists reached their rallying point on the Moor, Mosley spoke for around an
hour in front of a crowd in which, with just 100 police present, saw regular outbreaks
of violence breaking out. Stones, which caused numerous injuries, were thrown
towards the speaker’s platform that was ringed by BUF members in full uniform.
The violence
exploded when the rally ended and the BUF, protected by the police who used
their batons to clear a path through the increasingly hostile crowd, began
leaving the Moor. The fascists were simply overwhelmed by the anti-fascists.
Initially it was, as recorded by the Yorkshire Evening Post, hand to hand
fighting with a number of fascists knocked unconscious. BUF attempts not to
break ranks were crushed and then the escaping fascists were simply overwhelmed
by an ambush as they left the Moor and turned east into Holbeck Lane at which
point Mosley was hit by Broxup’s missile, one of many thrown at the time.
The author
asks ‘Was the Disorder Planned?’ Sources give no definitive answers. There was
speculation that the crowd had been provoked by the BUF tactics of attempting
to march in military formation through the large crowd.
The CPGB had
not called for violence and none of their members were amongst those arrested.
All these were local people which was not the case for the list of 14 people
injured – 12 of which the police confirmed were fascists - and of whom just two
were from Leeds – of whom one was almost certainly an antifascist. Conversely, William
Eaton from Lancaster was amongst those injured. He was a key BUF figure who was
later interned during WWII.
The book examines
the immediate press reaction – it was hostile – towards events on Holbeck Moor.
The fascists blamed the Jews for the violence. In the aftermath, there were fascist
attacks on the Progressive Bookshop on Woodhouse Lane.
As clashes –
including in Hull - between the BUF and opponents spread the growing calls to
restrict marches in political uniforms were eventually agreed upon in new
legislation that came into force on 1 January 1937.
Mosley did
return to Leeds in the run up to the start of WWII but it was clear from the
small numbers who turned out that his appeal had faded.
Michael
Agboh-Davison states in his introduction: ‘This is written in the capacity of
an interested amateur.’ Well, he has done a professional job in bringing alive
an important event from 90 years back. You can buy the booklet - £5 plus
postage by contacting him via Unite the union, NE/403/15branch, 55 Call Lane,
Leeds LS1 7BW -
1. 1. As was also the case in Manchester – see my booklet on Benny Rothman,
also a communist and best known for the Kinder Scout Trespass. https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/6328-benny-rothman.pdf
Fascism and violence
One of the reasons I was very active in Anti-Fascist Action
in the period 1988 – 1992 was because I believe in the principle of NO PLATFORM
FOR FASCISTS. This is because
as a violent ideology, fascist leaders, on behalf of the ruling class, seek to get
the disaffected to blame their poverty and subjugation on other, less well-off working
class communities. People are motivated to believe they can recover their pride by terrorising
those they have been encouraged to hate. So when fascists are publicly routed their
appeal drains quickly. AFA regularly physically crushed the fascists.
