Victor Burgess: Leadership, Idealism and Courage

By Keith Thompson
Victor Cecil Burgess grew up in East Anglia. He joined the Blackshirts during the Tithe Wars in the 1930s. He was briefly interned without charge or trial during the war. He then served in the army until being discharged for being in possession of literature regarded as subversive (in spite of the war supposedly being fought for freedom).
After the war he led an organisation which was called the Union Of British Freedom. In 1948 it amalgamated with about fifty other groups to form Union Movement under the leadership of Oswald Mosley.
Victor Burgess was an effective street speaker and lived through all the terrible fighting during the battle for free speech in Ridley Road, Dalston, East London. This was at the time of the murder and atrocities carried out against British soldiers in Palestine by the Stern Gang and the Irgun. Some Jews were offended by open condemnation of these these Jewish outrages and joined the '43 Group to prevent it.
This booklet is the history of those times and the role of one of the key players.
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