A. K. Chesterton
Arthur Kenneth Chesterton (
1896 —
August 16,
1973) was an ultra
right-wing politician and journalist, instrumental in founding a number of right-wing organisations in Britain, primarily in opposition to the break-up of the
British Empire, and later adopting a broader
anti-immigration stance.
As of 2005, one of these organizations, the
right-wing National Front is still active.
He was the cousin of author
G. K. Chesterton.
Born in
England, Chesterton was taken with his family to
South Africa as a boy and did not return to England until the late
1920s.
In 1915 he joined the British colonial army and was sent to
East Africa, where he almost died of
malaria and
dysentery.
After officer training, he ended up on the
Western Front in 1917, as a member of the
Durban Light Infantry. He was subsequently decorated with the
Military Cross. Like so many other future
fascists, his war experience was crucial to his repudiation of
democracy. The war also left Chesterton broken in health and an
alcoholic.
After the war, he worked as a journalist for the
Johannesburg Star. He then traveled to
England and secured a job with the
Stratford-on-Avon Herald, where, as the theatre critic from 1925 to 1929, he cultivated his aesthetic sense of societal decadence and cultural decline.
For the next four years, according to Chesterton's biographer, David Baker,[
1]
he tilted at windmills and sharpened his skills as a controversialist while the Great Depression deepened and the bankruptcy of liberal and capitalist democracy became apparent. The corporate state, he came to believe, would rule in the interests of the whole nation, whereas democracy was the plaything of special interests and privilegeMoving to London and marrying a
Fabian socialist and
pacifist, Chesterton found himself living near the headquarters of
Oswald Mosley's
British Union of Fascists. He took to dropping by for conversation and argument, and by late 1933 he had joined the movement.
He became the director of
Publicity and
Propaganda as well as the chief organiser for the
Midlands.
In 1936, Chesterton's alcoholism, combined with overwork, led to a nervous breakdown. He consulted a German
neurologist, and between 1936-7 lived in Germany. After returning to Britain he was appointed as editor of the
Blackshirt - the official BUF newspaper. This position provided a pulpit for his increasingly
anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Initially a strong admirer of
Oswald Mosley he left the BUF in
1938, somewhat disillusioned, but continued his involvement in
far-right politics by joining the
Nordic League and serving as the editor of
Lord Lymington's right-wing journal, the
New Pioneer.
In 1939, Chesterton re-enlisted in the British Army shortly after the outbreak of war. He served in
East Africa during
Second World War but returned to Britain in
1944, due to poor health, and launched the short lived National Front after Victory Group. He also became deputy editor of the right-wing publication
Truth.
He then returned to
Africa for a short time, after which point he again returned to
Britain where he established the
League of Empire Loyalists in
1954. The League was a
pressure group campaigning against the increasing dissolution of the British Empire, and was well-known at the time for its various stunts at
Conservative Party meetings and conferences (acting as a constant irritation to the party). These stunts included hiding underneath the speaker platform overnight to emerge during the conference in order to put across their points. The League found support from a number of Conservative Party members, although they were disliked very much by the leadership.
Also about this time, he was appointed by
Lord Beaverbrook to be one of his "literary advisers,"- contributing to the
Daily Mail and the
Sunday Express. He also ghostwrote the Beaverbrook's autobiography,
Don't Trust to Luck.
He also founded and edited the right-wing magazine
Candour. which he continued issuing for the rest of his life.
Chesterton went on to co-found the
National Front in
1967, an organization that continues to operate today (
2005). Chesterton was leader for only a short time, although he made several attempts to keep the party free from
national socialist extremists. Upon his stepping down the first of several long, inter-factional disputes took place within the NF which frequently coloured its policies in ways which Chesterton did not approve of. Today the NF describes itself as a "White nationalist organisation founded in 1967 in opposition to multi-racialism and immigration", although the term "multi-racialism" was not in common usage in 1967.
Amongst Chesterton's written works are
Portrait of a Leader (
1937), a
hagiography of Mosley;
Why I left Mosley (
1938), which broke from his earlier work;
The Tragedy of Anti-Semitism (
1948) in which he distanced himself from this form of prejudice; and
The New Unhappy Lords, a diatribe against international finance.
The last 30 years of Chesterton's life were spent in a modest apartment in
South Croydon with his wife, Doris. He died on
August 16,
1973.
*
British Nationalism*
Amok-Run of the SexologistChapter 6 of A. K. Chesterton's,
Facing the Abyss.
*David Baker.
Ideology of Obsession: A.K. Chesterton and British Fascism, London and New York,
I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1996, ISBN 1860640737
