English Mistery

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The English Mistery (or English Mystery) was a political and esoteric group active in the United Kingdom of the 1930s. A "Conservative fringe group" in favour of bringing back the feudal system[1], its views have been characterised as "reactionary ultra-royalist, anti-democratic"[2]. It was against everything to do with welfare, the London School of Economics, and the USA[3].

Contents

[edit] Founder

It was founded by William Sanderson, and took its title from his 1930 book That Which Was Lost: A Treatise on Freemasonry and the English Mistery. Sanderson was a Freemason but disaffected, and founded the group in 1930 to promote his view of 'leadership'[4].

[edit] Membership

Its members included the British Nietzschean Anthony Ludovici[5] and the journalist Collin Brooks[6]. Others were Rolf Gardiner and Graham Seton Hutchinson[7], founder in 1933 of the pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic National Workers' Movement[8], and the diplomat Cecil de Sausmarez[9]. Conservative MPs Gerard Wallop, Michael Beaumont and Reginald Dorman-Smith joined. Beaumont left: both he and Dorman-Smith found the Mistery inactive in practical terms[10][11]. The barrister John Platt-Mills was on the margins of the group for a time[12].

[edit] Split

Wallop eventually split the group in 1936, forming his successor organisation, the English Array. This schism left the Mistery in poor shape.

[edit] References

  • Dan Stone, The English Mistery, the BUF, and the Dilemmas of British Fascism, The Journal of Modern History 75 (June 2003), 336–358

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ E. H. H. Green, Ideologies of Conservatism: Conservative Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century (2002), p. 151.
  2. ^ Thomas Linehan, British Fascism, 1918-1939: Parties, Ideology and Culture (2000), p. 141.
  3. ^ Patrick Wright, The Village that Died for England (2002 edition), p. 204.
  4. ^ Dan Stone, Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain (2002), p. 42.
  5. ^ Stone, p. 45.
  6. ^ Stephen Dorril, Blackshirt (2006), p. 296.
  7. ^ Richard Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted (1998), p. 52.
  8. ^ Peter Barberis, John McHugh, Mike Tyldesley, Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups (2003),p. 193.
  9. ^ Wright, p. 204.
  10. ^ Stone, p. 43.
  11. ^ Peter Barberis, John McHugh, Mike Tyldesley, Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups (2003), p. 182.
  12. ^ Obituary, The Independent