Stand Up to Racism is searching for family members of the 30,000 people who stood up to Oswald Mosley in Leeds at the Battle of Holbeck Moor in 1936, as a blue plaque is unveiled in the city on Sunday.
The event was one of the biggest anti-fascist demonstrations in UK history, occurring a week before the Battle of Cable Street in the East End of London.
The plaque, installed by Leeds Civic Trust, marks the occasion when a rally of 1,000 Blackshirts, organised by Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), were outnumbered thirtyfold by anti-fascists who gathered ready to protest in Holbeck Moor.
Mosley had come to Leeds on 27 September to spread a message of antisemitism but had been banned from the Jewish area of the city in West Yorkshire by police and his attempts to address the crowd on top of a van were drowned out by loud singing and shouting among the counter-protesters.
A violent confrontation followed as the Blackshirts marched back towards the city. Mosley and his supporters were pelted with stones by the counter-protesters, yet only three arrests were made from the crowd of 30,000, who were mainly Leeds residents.
The group Stand Up to Racism, which sponsored the blue plaque, is collecting memories from the event, to be preserved in an archive.
Janice Heppenstall said of her mother, Muriel, who was at the event as a child: “For the rest of her life she remembered the hate written all over the faces of the young Blackshirts. However Mosley, she said, had not reckoned on ‘the men of Leeds’: a huge crowd had gathered on Holbeck Moor and was waiting, armed with stones which they threw, injuring some of the marchers and Mosley too.”
Mick Fitzpatrick, whose grandfather of the same name walked from Batley to Holbeck Moor to stand up to Mosley, said: “The miners’ group grew in numbers walking through Hunslet where many engineering plants still operated. Mosley famously himself sporting an injury visible the following week at Cable Street in London.
“I’m told that all the participants claimed it was their missile which hit him.”
Most of Leeds’s blue plaques commemorate individuals or buildings “but this one is different”, said the director of Leeds Civic Trust, Martin Hamilton.
“It tells the story of how the people of Leeds rose up to oppose the rise of fascism in the United Kingdom. This event made national news at the time and was an important statement of defiance as world war two approached. It is a story that deserves to be better known and I am delighted that we are able to support this blue plaque.”
Sam Kirk of Stand up to Racism said: “Mosley was stopped from whipping up racism in Leeds by the sheer numbers of people opposing him. He was sent a clear message that he was not welcome.”
He said it was particularly relevant, given the far-right riots over the summer, which were stopped in part due to anti-fascist demonstrators greatly outnumbering potential rioters.
“When the far right try to divide us and turn people against those seeking asylum or who are of particular religions they should be given the same message today. Let’s commemorate the past and ensure that Leeds remains fascist free now and in the future.”
Those with memories to share should contact Leeds Stand Up to Racism on Facebook or email sutrleeds@gmail.com.
