Blackshirts Salute the King and Queen
Silver Jubilee 1935 - King George and Queen Mary drive past the Black House on the Kings Road, Chelsea and are enthusiastically greeted with the Fascist salute - image, Blackshirt June 14, 1935 (click to enlarge)
Queen Mary was very familiar with the B.U.F. Her Lady in Waiting, Viscountess Dorothy Downe, was a high profile member who spoke at B.U.F. meetings.
The following article first appeared in Blackshirt, June 28, 1935.
A Farewell To 33, Kings Road.
by A Member of N.H.Q. Staff
The old "Black House," 33 Kings Road, Chelsea, is left behind us.
Soon it will have disappeared.
Yet, as the Leader told us when we assembled for the last time in the Club Room, no Blackshirt will ever pass down Kings Road without looking, first at the little upstairs room in which Fascism began its crusade in Britain, and then at whatever building has risen on the site of No. 33.
No matter how noble its successor, no building can mean more to Blackshirts or to Britain than the one which for two years has been the centre of our ever-widening, ever-deepening influence upon the people of this land.
Two years! They have been two years of great endeavour, two years of arduous struggle. And the old building has seen many changes and much progress. The two years have brought to that building thousands upon thousands of men and women in the service of their great ideal. To those who have lived and worked in it, every room, every staircase, holds a memory.
On Friday morning when the Leader stood on the platform in the Club-room for the last time, we recalled as in a flash all the times when we have met the Leader there.
Reference: Blackshirt, June 28, 1935
Notes
The Black House, a former women's teacher training college, was situated at 33 Kings Road in the London Borough of Chelsea.
The first building to occupy the site was Whitelands House, a girl's boarding school which opened in 1772.
In 1841 Whitelands House became a teacher training college for women and was renamed Whitelands College. The building was demolished and rebuilt in 1891 due to the increasing number of students.
A tradition which began in 1881, at the instigation of the Victorian philanthropist John Ruskin, was a May Day Festival of Flowers which included the enthroning of a May Queen.
The B.U.F. purchased the lease to Whitelands College in August 1933 and from then on it became known as the "Black House." The B.U.F. moved out of the Black House in June 1935. Chelsea Council had earmarked the site for redevelopment and the building was demolished soon after the B.U.F. left.
The site is now occupied by blocks of flats.
Mosley with staff members at the Black House, 29th September, 1933.
Mosley's Chief of Staff, Ian Hope Dundas, is on his far left.
Mosley's Chief of Staff, Ian Hope Dundas, is on his far left.
On Friday morning when the Leader stood on the platform in the Club-room for the last time, we recalled as in a flash all the times when we have met the Leader there.
Old students of what used to be known as Whitelands College have often visited the building and gone through it with affection during our stay, but reverent as their memories may be, they can never hold the depth of feeling which moves us to look with lasting love upon the building. Brief as our stay has been, it is to us haunted with a host of memories. I cannot look round my office during this last day here without recalling a thousand memories. And every one of us who have worked there has his own memories and thoughts.
Now we go on. As the Leader pointed out, this further development, this progress of organisation, was essential, and although we leave Kings Road with sympathetic regret, we realise that sooner or later this move had to be made, and that when it was made we could claim to have reached yet another great stage in our journey to triumph.
Reference: Blackshirt, June 28, 1935
Sir Oswald Mosley and fellow Blackshirts in the courtyard of the Black House,
29th September, 1933.
29th September, 1933.
Notes
The Black House, a former women's teacher training college, was situated at 33 Kings Road in the London Borough of Chelsea.
The first building to occupy the site was Whitelands House, a girl's boarding school which opened in 1772.
In 1841 Whitelands House became a teacher training college for women and was renamed Whitelands College. The building was demolished and rebuilt in 1891 due to the increasing number of students.
A tradition which began in 1881, at the instigation of the Victorian philanthropist John Ruskin, was a May Day Festival of Flowers which included the enthroning of a May Queen.
Whitelands College - May Day, 1919
The site is now occupied by blocks of flats.
