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A. K. Chesterton
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Arthur Kenneth Chesterton MC (1896 – 16 August 1973) was a far right-wing politician and journalist who helped found right-wing
organisations in Britain, primarily in opposition to the break-up of the British Empire, and later adopting a broader anti-immigration
stance. He is not to be confused with his cousin, the author G. K. Chesterton, who was a critic of what he called "the solemn fools
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of Teutonism".[1]
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Current events 1 Early life
Random article 2 Fascism
3 Writings
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4 Later life and death
5 Notes
Go Search 6 See also
7 External links
interaction 8 References
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Early life [edit]
Contact Wikipedia Born in England, A. K. Chesterton was taken with his family to South Africa as a boy and did not return to England until the late
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1920s. In 1915, he joined the British colonial army and was sent to East Africa, where he almost died of malaria and dysentery.
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After officer training, he was on the Western Front in 1917 with the Durban Light Infantry. He was awarded the Military Cross. His
toolbox war experience was crucial to his repudiation of democracy. The war also left Chesterton broken in health and an alcoholic.
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After the war, he was a journalist for the Johannesburg Star. He secured a job with the Stratford-on-Avon Herald back in England,
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where, as theatre critic from 1925 to 1929, he cultivated his aesthetic sense of societal decadence and cultural decline.
Special pages For the next four years, according to Chesterton's biographer, David Baker:
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Permanent link "he tilted at windmills and sharpened his skills as a controversialist while the Great Depression deepened and the bankruptcy of
Cite this page 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 privilege."[2]
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Fascism [edit]

Moving to London and marrying a Fabian socialist and pacifist, Chesterton lived 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 and chief organiser for the Midlands.
In 1936, alcoholism and overwork led to a nervous breakdown. He consulted a German neurologist and during 1936 to 1937 lived in
Germany. After returning to Britain he was appointed editor of the Blackshirt, the official BUF newspaper. This position provided a
pulpit for his increasingly anti-Semitic rhetoric.
He left the BUF in 1938, disillusioned, but continued to be active in far-right politics by joining the Nordic League and serving as
editor of Lord Lymington's right-wing journal, the New Pioneer .
In 1939, Chesterton re-enlisted in the British Army after the outbreak of war. He served in East Africa, but returned to Britain in
1944 due to poor health, and launched the short-lived National Front after Victory Group, a coalition that included the British
Peoples Party. He became deputy editor of the publication Truth.
He lived again in Africa for a short time, but soon returned to Britain where he established the League of Empire Loyalists in 1954.
The League was a pressure group against the increasing dissolution of the British Empire, and was known at the time for stunts at
Conservative Party meetings and conferences. These included hiding underneath the platform overnight to emerge during the
conference to put across points. The League had support from some Conservative Party members, but they were disliked by the
leadership.
About this time, Chesterton was appointed by Lord Beaverbrook as a literary adviser, contributing to the Daily Mail and the Sunday
Express. He also wrote Beaverbrook's autobiography, Don't Trust to Luck.
Chesterton founded and edited the magazine Candour, which he issued for the rest of his life, and which is still published today [3].
Chesterton co-founded the National Front. Chesterton was leader for a short time, although he tried to keep the party free from
national socialists. Upon stepping down the first of several long, inter-factional disputes took place within the NF which frequently
affected its policies in ways of which Chesterton did not approve. 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 use in
1967.

Writings [edit]

Amongst Chesterton's 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.

Later life and death [edit]

 The last 30 years of Chesterton's life were spent in a modest flat in South Croydon with his wife, Doris. He died on 16 August 1973.

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Illustrated London News, 11 January 1919

2. ^ David Baker Ideology of Obsession: A. K. Chesterton and British Fascism , 1996, I. B. Tauris (UK)/Macmillan (USA)
3. ^ Candour, BM Candour, London, WC1N 3XX

See also [edit]

British Nationalism

External links [edit]

Amok-Run of the Sexologist Chapter 6 of A. K. Chesterton's, Facing the Abyss.

Candour & A.K. Chesterton Trust Website

References [edit]

David Baker. Ideology of Obsession: A.K. Chesterton and British Fascism , London and New York, I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1996,
ISBN 1-86064-073-7
Links to related articles [show]

Categories: 1896 births | 1973 deaths | British fascists | Leaders of the British National Front | Old Berkhamstedians | Recipients
of the Military Cross | Far right politics in the United Kingdom

This page was last modified on 19 April 2010 at 21:34.

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