| The Baroness Birdwood | |
|---|---|
| Born | 18 May 1913 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada |
| Died | 28 June 2000 (aged 87) United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Politician, activist, publisher |
| Spouse | Lord Birdwood |
Jane Birdwood, Baroness Birdwood (18 May 1913 — 28 June 2000) was the wife of Lord Birdwood and a political figure on the far right in the United Kingdom who took part in a number of movements.
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She was born Joan Pollock Graham in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of a singer from Hull and a mother from Newcastle; the family returned to Britain and settled in Yorkshire in the 1920s.[1] She changed her name to Jane in order to avoid confusion with a popular radio actress of the time. She was cited as a correspondent in the divorce case of Lieutenant Colonel The Hon. Christopher Birdwood (the son of Field Marshal William Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood) and became his second wife after the divorce was finalised in 1954; her husband's father had died in 1952.[2]
Initially serving only as a worker for her husband's passion, international aid, she expanded her political involvement after becoming a widow in 1962. She was a member of the League for European Freedom, an anti-communist group that sought to aid refugees from Eastern Europe. Her activities also brought her into contact with such groups as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and individuals such as Yaroslav Stetsko.[3]
Around the same time, she allied herself with campaigns to support public decency, and was briefly associated with Mary Whitehouse, becoming chair of the London branch of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association.[3][4] In this role, she attempted to launch a number of prosecutions against productions and writers that offended her sense of taste, including the producers of controversial theatrical revue Oh! Calcutta! and actor John Bird, the author of the play Council of Love.[3]
Lady Birdwood became involved in campaigns against trade unions, setting up the Citizens Mutual Protection Society in the early 1970s, which launched a failed attempt to run a private postal service. She took a leading role in several far right pressure groups, including the Immigration Control Association, Common Cause, the British League of Rights (of which she was General Secretary) and Self Help, the latter attempting, unsuccessfully, to charge Arthur Scargill with treason.[3]
Following her departure, she was associated with the British National Front for a short spell. She also worked with Ross McWhirter at this time on his magazine Majority, and became a vocal critic of the Provisional Irish Republican Army after his murder. She also devoted much time to the World Anti-Communist League.[3]
One of her major failed efforts had her calling for the UK to enforce the Edict of Expulsion against English Jews in 1290, insisting the edict had never been revoked, although successive British governments had, in fact, overturned the edict, beginning with Oliver Cromwell.
She stood in the 1983 by-election in Bermondsey as an independent candidate, winning 69 votes, and attacked her opponents by labelling the Tory candidate a "multiracialist" and the NF candidate a "socialist".[3] She was equally unsuccessful when she stood as a British National Party candidate in the 1992 general election in Dewsbury. Through much of her later life, she published the journal Choice, which presented a right wing stance but was generally independent of any political party.[5]
In 1994, the 80 year old was prosecuted for violating the Public Order Act of 1986 by publishing her pamphlet, The Longest Hatred, which denied the Holocaust and claimed the existence of a subversive Jewish conspiracy in Britain.[1] She was sentenced to 3 months in prison, suspended. Three years earlier she had been convicted of distributing anti-semitic literature with the intention of strring up racial hatred.[1]
Lady Birdwood continued to lead British Solidarity as a pressure group, publish Choice and run a publishing venture, Inter City Researchers, until late 1999 when she was forced to stand down for health reasons. After her retirement most of these concerns passed into the hands of her associates, the former National Front co-leader Martin Webster and Peter Marriner, also a former British Movement activist.[3]
| Date of election | Constituency | Party | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 February 1983 | Bermondsey | 'Independent Patriot' | 69 | 0.2 |
| 10 April 1986 | Fulham | England Demands Repatriation | 226 | 0.6 |
| 1992 | Dewsbury | British National Party | 660 | 1.1 |