Posted: Mon 13 Jan, 2014 4:18 pm
I've recently been doing some research into a political movement called the Green Shirts which has a strong connection to Leeds and was quite a significant force in the 1930s. The movement began life as the Kibbo Kift, a woodcraft organisation which in many ways was a forerunner of later eco movements. There’s full history of the Kibbo Kift here http://www.kibbokift.org/The Kibbo Kift eventually drifted into political activity and adopted social credit as its ideology. A new party was formed called the Social Credit Party of Great Britain. Basically social credit supporters believed that everybody who engaged in labour deserved a payment back in addition to their wages. This payment should take the form of a national dividend. More detail on the party is available on Wikipdedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Cre ... _IrelandTo cut a long story short, Leeds played a very significant role in this political movement as it was the only city where the Social Credit Party of Great Britain ever stood a Parliamentary candidate. The candidate was called Wilfred Townend and he stood in the 1935 general election in South Leeds. The party had a Leeds headquarters at 11 Beeston Road, which by my calculations is now somewhere under the M621.Wilfred Townend had an interesting Leeds history. He was born in 1899 near Castelford and in 1922 was Assistant Master at Meanwood National School (what is now Meanwood C of E Primary). In 1922-23 he worked at Armley Council School, then at St Silas National School between 1923-25. At some point between 1923 and 1925 he took a job as Divinity Master at Cockburn High School, and moved to South Leeds around 1934 or just after.He joined the Social Credit Party in 1933. The party was known as the Green Shirts because they wore a military style uniform, and Townend wore the uniform at all of his speaking engagements. The party polled 11% of the vote in the 1935 election, which for a fringe party is pretty good going. Lots of Green Shirt supporters travelled up from London to support Townend, and one of the stunts they used was to pay for their £150 election deposit in half crown pieces. They marched through the streets of south Leeds in full uniform with drums and banners.Townend stood again for Parliament in 1945 as an independent candidate in Leeds South East. He died in 1982.It’s a little known part of Leeds history and one which deserves a wider audience. I have more information and a few pictures if anyone is interested. Also, if you have any more information to add please post it.