The Battle of Holbeck Moor - September 27th 1936

"THEY DO NOT have an answer _ to the Blackshirt argument, so they do their best to prevent it being heard."

Oswald Mosley, leader of British Union, was speaking through a hail of stones and other Missiles, many fired from catapults, to the largest audience to attend a public meeting in Leeds on September 27th 1936.

The Majority listening with wrapped attention, the great sea of faces stretching across the Moor. Several hundred Reds, imported into Leeds from all over the North, had gathered near the speaker's van, their intention to break up the meeting. Their chanting drowned by the volume of the amplifiers, and unable to break through the Defence Force, they resorted to attacks on Blackshirts isolated in the crowd, several of whom had to receive treatment for their injuries.

Defeated in their objective, the gangs of Reds made repeated attacks on the Blackshirts as they marched back to headquarters. In fierce fighting in Holbeck lane and Domestic Street, Blackshirts quickly repulsed furious rushes on their ranks, though many were hit by bricks and stones.

As the march proceeded showers of stones fell on Blackshirts from behind hoardings and several marchers were badly hit. A determined attack was made on Mosley and his party as he joined the head of the column, and in fierce fighting on the pavement, he was wounded below the right eye by a stone thrown at close range.

Having tried everything without success to halt the Blackshirt column, they switched their attack, in Sweet Street, to the stoning of an ambulance taking the injured to hospital. Marching on went the Blackshirts as they approached the city centre, thousands, many of whom had heard of the violence on the Moor, crowded the payments to see the Mosley men who once again had met and defeated Red violence on our English streets.

This website produced on behalf of the Friends of Oswald Mosley ©2003 FOM

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