ON MONDAY June 29 1936 Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) was prevented from holding a meeting in Middlesbrough Town Hall by a Communist Party-organised demonstration.

The meeting in Middlesbrough Town Hall that evening brought upwards of 8,000 local Communists and their supporters to the demonstration outside Middlesbrough’s municipal buildings. Unlike the first time Mosley spoke on Teesside, in February 1935, the police and BUF doormen did not strictly control who entered the building, and as a result a significant number of Communists managed to get into the meeting hall before Mosley arrived.

George Short, the Teesside Communist Party district organiser, says that he managed to “get some of our boys” into the town hall, and that Mosley’s blackshirts reacted violently. In the fighting which ensued chairs were broken, and the meeting hall was trashed. Mosley, on the platform surrounded by his bodyguards, was forced to abandon the meeting. A family member recalls that one member of the women’s section was so enraged when she saw a comrade leaving the building with a bloody face that she herself entered, she returned with her umbrella bent in two, having “introduced it to a few fascist heads.”

Following interruptions and a warning by Mosley that interrupters would be removed, he directed the attention of Blackshirt stewards to a woman in the body of the hall, and she was forcibly ejected. She was seized by two female Blackshirts and a struggle in the centre of the hall followed, during which there was considerable fighting.

Future International Brigade volunteers Tommy Chilvers, Otto Estensen and Jim Worton, were some of those that got inside to break up Mosley’s meeting: “I was involved in all manner of political activity; NUWM, hunger marches, anti-fascist demonstrations, strikes etc, plus actions against racism at the shipping offices by the BUF. Jim Worton (wife’s brother) also a brigader and I were thrown out of Mosley’s Town Hall meeting by BUF stewards, with the police defending them ‘freedom of speech’,” said Chilvers later, in 1984.

Chilvers said that Jim Worton was injured in the fighting inside the town hall: “A great fighter (in every sense of the word) against the Blackshirts and has a scar on his cheek received from a knuckle-duster on the hand of a Mosley boxer bodyguard.”

Due to the damage to the town hall, and the cost of the police operations the authorities barred the BUF from hiring any municipal buildings on Teesside hereafter and the humiliated Blackshirt leader never returned to to the area.

Mosley would be humiliated once again, but to a much greater extent, just three months later at Cable Street.

Less than three weeks after the humbling of Mosley in Middlesbrough by the Teesside Communists, the Spanish civil war broke out on July 17 1936, many of those who had fought the fascists in our region now volunteered to fight the fascists in Spain.

George Short organised 32 Teesside volunteers to serve in the International Brigade; of these 10 lost their lives in Spain.

Last year on June 29 2025 we held a commemoration at Middlesbrough Town Hall to mark the demonstration against Mosley and the British Union of Fascists, it was only a few weeks after the first “Farage riots” of April 2025.

George Short’s grandson Alan sent this message for our 2025 commemoration:

“I welcome your event on 29th June and the link between the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain with the rise of the BUF led by Oswald Mosley in the 1930s in the UK.

“This period is now echoing in the rise of the far right in many countries and the recent success of Reform in the UK.

“The scapegoating of both those fleeing for their lives from places destroyed by wars and dictatorship and those encouraged by our government to work and study in the UK is disgraceful.”

The North East Volunteers for Liberty, who commemorate those who fought fascism in Britain, Italy and Spain will be holding a commemoration at Middlesbrough town hall on Sunday June 28 2026 at 2pm to mark the Mosley meeting and the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish civil war.

I’ll quote Phyllis Short, the leader of the women’s section and one of the organisers of the demonstration in June 1936: “I am very proud that I did it. I’ll say this, we have three children, and while they are not active — you know, not wanting to get to the top, be an MP and or anything like that — they are very close to us and they understand that the fight that we’ve made, and the little improvements that they’re getting now are because of the stand that we made.”

For further details contact [email protected].