Battle of Carfax

Oswald Mosley, then leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), visited Oxford numerous times for political meetings throughout the early 1930s. These meetings were often disorderly, but had never broken out into a large violent fight.[2] The BUF targeted their recruitment towards students of the University of Oxford, doing so through the Oxford University Fascist Association (OUFA), which was established in 1933 and was considered one of the most active university-based fascist organisations in Britain.[3]

Oswald Mosley's fascist activities were financed by Oxford factory owner and wealthy capitalist William Morris (Lord Nuffield) who gave Mosley £35,000 to fund a pro-fascist and anti-Semitic newspaper called Action,[5][6] and £50,000 in 1930 to support the activities of the fascist New Party,[5][7][8][9] which would soon afterwards join together with other organisations to form the British Union of Fascists.

In 1933 students from Ruskin College founded the Red Shirts, Oxford's first organisation dedicated solely to anti-fascism.[10] Many of the Red Shirts were communists and volunteered to act as stewards at events held by the October Club, Oxford University's communist society.[10]

The opposition to Britain's fascist movements was primarily led by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), whose Oxford branch was headed by the working-class organiser Abraham Lazarus (Firestone Bill).[11] Lazarus was a Marxist activist who had been raised in London by a Jewish family.[11] Upon arriving in Oxford, Lazarus soon became a popular figure among Oxford's working class for leading the successful 1934 strike of 1,000s of factory workers in one of William Morris's factories, for leading the Florence Park rent strikes against local slumlords, and for organising a march of approximately 2,000 people against Oxford's Cutteslowe walls.[11] Lazarus was also able to create successful links between local communist activists and the Oxford branch of the Labour Party.[11] Although Lazarus was not present at the Battle of Carfax, his work to organise anti-fascist activism within the city of Oxford helped facilitate the decline of fascist politics in the city.

Alongside the rise of Communist Party activity among Oxford's working class, another factor in the rising tide of anti-fascist activity in the city was the arrival of German refugees fleeing the Nazis. Many of these refugees were academics with the most notable examples including the scientists Albert Einstein and Ernst Chain. Many working German refugees also made Oxford their home such as the activist Liesel Carritt and her family.

On the night of 25 May 1936, Oswald Mosley who was then serving as the leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) held a public event in a hall called the Carfax Assembly Rooms. This location was a popular venue for public events in Oxford and was owned by Oxford City Council, who allowed Mosley to host his event in the Carfax Assembly Rooms after denying him the right to use Oxford Town Hall for his public event.

The Assembly Rooms were filled with an estimated 1,000 people, though a large number of the people inside the hall were anti-fascists who showed up to protest against Mosley and the BUF.[12] Blackshirts were lined up around the walls of the hall, surrounding the crowd of attendees. Eyewitnesses who attended the meeting noted that many people in the crowd attempted to peacefully disrupt the meeting by making loud noises with their hands and feet, rustling large newspapers, and heckling the fascists.[12] Other eyewitnesses recall Mosley playing the anthem of the Nazi Party, the "Horst-Wessel-Lied".[13]

While Mosley spoke inside the Carfax Assembly Rooms, a crowd of local workers held an anti-fascist demonstration outside the meeting.[12] A large number of these workers were bus drivers who had gone on strike earlier that month and had made Communist Party activist Abraham Lazarus their spokesperson.[14] These workers were influenced by communist political ideology, and consequently anti-fascism. These workers attended the anti-fascist demonstration not to violently break up the fascist meeting, but to intervene if the BUF were to become violent against anti-fascist protesters.[12]

During the meeting, Mosley attempted to provoke the crowd by giving a speech in which he insulted the Labour Party by calling them 'pink rabbits in the pay of the Jews", and insulted workers and the students of Ruskin College by claiming they had "stage guardsman accents".[13] The meeting appeared to have become less tense the longer it went on, until one of the Blackshirts attempted to violently eject one of the hecklers, the journalist and Liberal Party politician Basil Murray.[15] The brutality of the Blackshirts shocked many in the audience, and the hall erupted into a violent fight.[13] The bus workers present defended the heckler and fought against the Blackshirts.[16]

Despite the violence being instigated by the Blackshirts and the presence of a large number of organised fascist paramilitary-style members, the physical fight appeared to have been an overwhelming anti-fascist victory. Four Blackshirts were hospitalised, while anti-fascists appeared to have only suffered minor injuries including bruises and a cut lip.[17] Following the violence, the meeting ended quickly and there was no further violence.[17]

Following the eruption of violence, Mosley fled through a side door in the meeting hall.[17] The events of the Battle of Carfax and the involvement of one of the attendees, Frank Pakenham, was then raised in the Houses of Parliament by Labour Party politician Hugh Dalton.[18]