Oswald Ernald Mosley

Mosley, Oswald Ernald 

Born Nov. 16, 1896, in London. Baronet. Leader of the British fascists, a follower of Hitler, a virulent anticommunist and racist.

Mosley was educated at the aristocratic public school of Winchester and at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1918, he left the Conservative Party in 1922 and sat as an Independent until 1924. He was a Labour member of Parliament from 1924 to 1931 and a member of J. R. MacDonald’s second Labour government during 1929–30. Mosley left the Labour Party in 1931 and founded the British Union of Fascists in 1932. He advocated collaboration with fascist Germany and fascist Italy and the establishment of a fascist order in Great Britain. He was interned from 1940 to 1943. After World War II (1939–45), Mosley once again actively engaged in fascist propaganda in Great Britain. He founded the Union Movement in 1948.