Battle of Stockton

Stockton was hit hard by the economic recession following the Great Depression. In June 1933, Oswald Mosley announced an offensive, aiming to expand the BUF beyond its headquarters in London and base in Manchester. George Short, the Communist Party District Organiser for Teesside, had spent almost three years at the International Lenin School in Moscow. On his return, in late 1931, he threw himself into political activism on Teesside.

Whilst the Stockton contingent of the NUWM were on the 1932 National Hunger March, the Stockton magistrates banned Short's NUWM Saturday evening surgeries that were held at the Market Cross on Stockton High Street. These were to assist the unemployed, especially fighting the despised Means Test. In response Short relocated, he helped the unemployed in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church and held his political meetings at the Five Lamps in Thornaby. As only the NUWM and CPGB were barred from holding meetings at the Market Cross, Short and his wife Phyllis organised a series of sit-down protests.

On 30 March 1933, Short, his wife Phyllis, David Catterick, Patrick O'Neil and Henry Walker were arrested for defying the ban and marching up and down the High Street. The men were charged with resisting the police, disturbance of the peace and the very serious charge of inciting others to commit violence (which held a minimum sentence of 10 yrs and could go up to a life sentence). Phyllis was charged with obstructing the police.

"Despite her size my grandmother was a formidable woman, whilst being roughly manhandled by a big policeman she bit him on the hand, she was charged with assaulting the policeman. Mind you, as George said, 'she did get through to the bone.'"[2]

On 3 April 1933 at the Magistrates Court, although found not guilty of inciting others to commit violence, Short and Catterick refused to be bound over to keep the peace and were sentenced to three months in Durham Prison, where Short would be later joined by his close friend Wilf Jobling. When the 5-foot-tall Phyllis was asked if she had assaulted the 6 foot 6 inch Superintendent Hammond standing next to her, her shrug reduced everyone in the magistrates court to fits of laughter, found Phyllis guilty reluctantly. She, for the sake of their children, agreed to be bound over and to pay 10 shillings.[3]

On 5 April 1933, 'considerable commotion was cause on the High Street' when the NUWM protested against the imprisonment of George Short and David Catterick.[4]

"I was in prison when the first attempt by the Mosley fascists to organise their first meeting on Teesside happened, and that was in Stockton, they held a meeting on Stockton's Cross, and whilst it was a rowdy meeting, they carried it off."[5]

On his release George and Phyllis planned and organised 'real resistance' to the next BUF meeting. The BUF delayed their meeting until after George was released, speculation suggests that this was an attempt to have him arrested and charged with inciting others to commit violence, which if charged for a second time would very likely result in a lengthy prison term.

The BUF's North East Organiser, Michael Jordan, planned to speak at the Market Cross on Sunday 10 September 1933, asking for support for his dozen local members.[6] He was sent a senior BUF speaker, the National Propaganda Officer, Captain Vincent Collier. Also sent to Stockton were twenty Tyneside members and sixty from Manchester's newly formed 'Defence Force', these latter wore a black shirt as a uniform, later used by the BUF as a whole. When Collier and his 100 men arrived at Stockton's Market Cross he found it occupied by George Short and a peaceful crowd of up to 3000 supporters. Collier was prevented from speaking by the hecklers – the police report states "The hecklers were exclusively CP and NUWM members."[7] The Police immediately ordered the meeting to be abandoned and escorted the BUF back to their buses on the other side of the river at Thornaby at Victoria Bridge.[1]

"The Fascists appeared to be keen on fighting and we had to give them a sharp reminder to get moving and get away out of the town before any further damage was done."[8] Another version of events is that the Fascists were attacked by a crowd and barricaded themselves in the street. When the Police (who were outnumbered) were reinforced they ordered the fascists back to their buses and escorted them there.[1]

As the BUF withdrew, a handful of the Blackshirts attacked individuals in the crowd, which resulted in isolated pockets of fighting which Collier elaborated upon for the newspapers, who eagerly repeated his fabrications. Michael Jordan in his later report places the blame for the fighting firmly on the Manchester Defence Force, and one leader in particular.

"I was approached by an officer who told me our men had come for a fight and it would break their hearts if they were allowed to go back to Manchester without one. He stated he was from London Headquarters and would take the responsibility. I informed him that I was in charge of the area and would not stand for innocent people being bludgeoned, He deliberately attacked one of the crowd with the result that a riot started in a few seconds."[9]

George Short's grandson gives an indication as to why the Teesside Communists were so successful; in contrast to the BUF, George ensured that the anti-fascist protesters were seen as non-violent.

"A group of comrades captured one of Mosley's Blackshirts and were heading towards the river with the intention of throwing him in. My grandfather persuaded them that if he died it would create a martyr, so they let him go."[10]

There is an account of this incident written from a fascists' perspective, John Charnley, a Blackshirt originally from Hull, in his 1990 account of his time in the BUF:

"It was in one of these sweeps that Ned Warburton was felled. he was cut off and carried struggling by a group of Reds who were going to 'chuck him in the river'. Fortunately, a group of uncommitted locals outside a pub saw the incident, attacked the Reds and rescued him, bandaged his head and got him back to the Blackshirts during a lull in the fighting."[11]

Reports of the event show vast differences between the police and press reports; The police were naturally keen to demonstrate that they competently and successfully handled a difficult situation, while the press were keen to sell papers and sensationalise the events. Vincent Collier supplied the press with sensational reports. Edward 'Ned' Warburton [12] was one of the two Blackshirts injured at Stockton, losing the sight in one eye. Collier claimed the injury was due to being struck by a potato which had a cutthroat razor blade embedded in it, but Ned's brother John stated it was a stone. The myth was further elaborated upon in Richard Bellamy's We Marched with Mosley.[13] The contemporary newspaper accounts and Bellamy's accounts have been, until very recently, the only sources; leading to a number of implausible misinterpretations which glorify the violence.

The day afterwards there was an anti-fascist rally organised by the local Labour and Co-operative movements, the local Jewish community and the Christian churches. The main speaker was Rabbi Miller from Middlesbrough who said Britain was in danger from jeopardising liberty by Fascism and Hitlerism which needed to be nipped in the bud.[1]

The Battle of Stockton was a hugely significant setback for the BUF on Teesside; resulting in Michael Jordan, who had been with Mosley in the New Party, submitting a long and rather acrimonious resignation letter. He left the movement taking a number of experienced activists with him. The diminished BUF relocated to Middlesbrough; in an interview recorded shortly before his death, George Short says:

"In Middlesbrough they learnt their lesson, they held no outdoor meeting, instead they held them in Middlesbrough Town Hall."[14]

Short's continued anti-fascist campaign ensured that, despite relocating, the BUF never established a foothold on Teesside. Communists continued to disrupt BUF meetings; after Mosley himself tried to speak at Middlesbrough Town Hall in February 1935, which resulted in damage to the Town Hall, local councillors objected to ratepayers footing the bill for policing. Thereafter the local authorities prevented the BUF from hiring halls anywhere on Teesside.

Three years later, Short was still resisting fascism, not just locally and nationally, but now internationally; he vetted and organised the twenty-one Volunteers for Liberty from Teesside who fought in the XV International Brigade for the Spanish Republican government during the Spanish Civil War.

"My job became a very difficult job because comrades who wanted to go to Spain had to report to me. When these lads fell, it was my job to go and visit their relatives and explain to them that they had fallen, and it was a very hard job."[15]

in 2012, local folk trio The Young'uns released "The Battle of Stockton" on their album When Our Grandfathers Said No.

Inspired by the 2011 article by David Walsh, in August 2017 an organisation called The Battle of Stockton Campaign (BoS) was founded in order to commemorate the event. On 9 September 2018, a plaque marking the battle was unveiled at the Market Cross by the town's mayor, Eileen Johnson.[16][17] Other speakers at the commemoration were Stockton North MP Alex Cunningham, North-East MEP Jude Kirton-Darling, actress and president of the International Brigade Memorial Trust Marlene Sidaway, the convener of Cable Street 80; David Rosenberg and Unison's Claire Williams.

• Battle of South Street - an incident between BUF members and anti-fascists in Worthing on 9 October 1934.
• Battle of Cable Street - a later and larger battle between the London Metropolitan Police and anti-fascists in London in 1936.

• Serdiville, Rosie (2018). The Battle of Stockton: How a Small Town Saw Off Fascists in 1933. Durham: The Historical Association.
• The Teesside International Brigade Memorial

• Battle of Stockton Campaign Group
• Stockton's International Brigade Memorial
• North East Volunteers for Liberty