A. N. Field

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A. N. Field, Arthur Nelson Field, (1882-1963) was a New Zealand white supremacist, anti-Semite and neofascist.

Born in Nelson he was the first son of four children born to Tom Field and Jessica Black. Tom Field was associated with Wilkins and Field Hardware in his native city, which his father had founded, and went on to serve as managing director, as well as a Nelson city councillor and New Zealand Member of Parliament for that electoral constituency (1914-1919).

Arthur took up journalism and worked as a reporter for the The Evening Post, Taranaki Herald, Poverty Bay Herald and Melbourne Argus (1901-1907), before resettling in Nelson in 1907. He served as a Wellington Dominion columnist for the next 21 years (1907-1928). There was a break during this period when he served as a Royal Navy sub-lieutenant and adjutant at Portsmouth, and on board RNV Spenser in the North Sea. He returned to New Zealand when discharged in 1914.

[edit] White supremacism and anti-semitism, 1912-1950

While working as a journalist and serving in the navy, Field became involved in extreme right politics. In 1909 he published The Citizen, an early far right publication which upheld motherhood, eugenics and monetary reform, and opposed "Maori Obstructionism" for seven years, 1912-1919. After that period, he also became involved with "The Britons", a white supremacist group that specialised in publishing New Zealand editions of the notorious Tsarist Russian anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and himself published a New Zealand edition. During the Second World War, he was kept under surveillance by the Security Intelligence Bureau of New Zealand's Department of External Affairs.

Field won later "acclaim" from kindred anti-Semites such as the League of Empire Loyalists and the late Eric Butler of the Australian League of Rights.

Marcus van Rooij wrote a paper on A.N.Field's influence on Australian neofascism, suggesting hisconspiracy theory discourse impacted on other such Australian organisations during the Depression era. In particular, The Truth About the Slump (1931, 1932) enjoyed widespread circulation and stimulated the interest of organisations such as the Guild of Watchmen of Australia, the Australian Catholic Truth Society, the League of Truth, the British Australian Racial Body, and Evangelical Publishing Company of New South Wales. Australian anti-Semite Patricia Lewin cited Truth About the Slump in her tract, The Key (1933), as did numerous other Australian Social Credit and Douglas Credit figures that based their work on the monetary theories of C.H.Douglas. Rooij designated him the "Kiwi theoretician of the Australian Radical Right."

Despite the recognition of his work in Australia and the United States, and the circulation of his books within those countries, Field preferred to work from his isolated Nelson homestead.

In his later years, Field wrote a series of self-published tracts on his interpretations of economics, anti-socialist articles about the New Zealand Labour Party and trade union movement, and related matters. Some were republished in the United States in the early 1960s. Field died aged 81 in a private hospital in Nelson.

His collected tracts and monographs were later deposited in the Alexander Turnball Library in the National Library of New Zealand in 1968.

[edit] Biography

  • A.N.Field: Wanted: Accurate Data about Human Heredity: Timaru: Timaru Post Publishing: 1911.
  • A.N.Field: Medical Marriage Certificates: London: Eugenic Education Society: 1912.
  • A.N.Field: The Defence Department's Failure: Wellington: Wellington Publishing Company: 1915.
  • A.N.Field: The Truth about the Slump: Nelson: A.N.Field: 1931, 1932.
  • A.N.Field: The Stabilisation of Money: Nelson: A.N.Field: 1934.
  • A.N.Field: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Nelson: A.N.Field: 1934.
  • A.N.Field: The Untaught History of Money: Nelson: A.N.Field: 1938.
  • A.N.Field: All These Things, Volume 1: Nelson: A.N.Field: 1936.
  • A.N.Field: Socialism Unmasked: Nelson: A.N.Field: 1938.
  • A.N.Field: The Bretton Woods Plot: Nelson: A.N.Field: 1957.
  • A.N.Field: All These Things: Hawthorne, California: Omni Publishing: 1963.
  • A.N.Field: The Truth About New Zealand: Bullsbrook: Veritas: 1987: ISBN 0947117407.
  • Marcus La Rooij: "Arthur Nelson Field: Kiwi Theoretician of the Australian Radical Right?" Labour History 89 (November 2005): 37-54.
  • New Zealand Department of External Affairs Archives: Report on Arthur Nelson Field by Security Intelligence Bureau: 15 December 1943: EA1, 84/10/1, Part 1, National Archives.
  • Paul Spoonley: The Politics of Nostalgia: The Extreme Right in New Zealand: Dunmore Press: Palmerston North: 1987.
  • Paul Spoonley: "Field,Arthur Nelson: 1882-1963)": Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz (2006).
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