Jeffrey Hamm

Edward Jeffrey Hamm (15 September, 1915 – 4 May, 1994) was a leading British Fascist and supporter of Oswald Mosley.

Born in Ebbw Vale, Wales, he came into contact with the British Union of Fascists during a family trip to London and joined the movement in 1935, when he relocated to London. Something of a minor player in the BUF due to his youth, he moved to the Falkland Islands in 1939 to work as a teacher. He was arrested there in 1940 for his BUF membership (under Defence Regulation 18B) and later transferred to a camp in South Africa. Released in 1941 he was later called up to the Royal Armoured Corps and served until his discharge in 1944.

Following his discharge, Hamm set up the 'British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women', which claimed to look after veterans interests, as well as keep Mosley's ideas current. Seeking to keep British fascism alive, Hamm organized a series of meetings in Hyde Park from November 1944 onwards, later moving them to the traditional BUF areas of East London. Hamm's League rallies eventually began to attract thousands, convincing him that a proper political return was a distinct possibility. He soon began calling on Mosley to return to the leadership of British fascism and incorporated his own British League into the Union Movement immediately upon its foundation in 1948. Hamm became a leading member of the new UM and stood as a candidate for them in the United Kingdom general election, 1966 in the Handsworth constituency (polling 4%). Based in Notting Hill, he organised the UM in that area, a significant base of its operations.

In the later years of the UM Hamm served as Mosley's personal secretary. He would go on to reluctantly agree to the changing of the UM into the Action Party, on the instigation of Keith Thompson. It soon after reverted to the name of Union Movement. Hamm remained the Secretary of the Union Movement and the subsequent Action Society until his death from Parkinson's disease in 1994. He published his autobiography, "Action Replay", in 1983. Following this, Hamm published his second book, "The Evil Good Men Do" in 1988 shortly after the birth of his Grandson. The Papers of Jeffrey Hamm are housed at the University of Birmingham Special Collections

Elections contested

External links

* [http://www.oswaldmosley.com/people/hamm.html Biography at Friends of Oswald Mosley site]
* [http://europeanaction.com/_wsn/page8.html Biography at European Action]
* [http://www.oswaldmosley.com/downloads/Action%20Replay.pdf Full text of 'Action Replay']