The January Club was a discussion group founded in 1934 by Oswald Mosley

Oswald Mosley

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...

 to attract Establishment

The Establishment

The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...

 support for the movement known as the British Union of Fascists

British Union of Fascists

The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...

.

The Club was under the effective control of Robert Forgan

Robert Forgan

Robert Forgan was a British politician who was a close associate of Oswald Mosley.-Early life and medical career:The Scottish-born Forgan was the son of a Church of Scotland minister...

, working on behalf of the BUF. The founders as identified by MI5

MI5

The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...

 were Forgan, Donald Makrill, Francis Yeats-Brown

Francis Yeats-Brown

Major Francis Charles Claypon Yeats-Brown, DFC was an officer in the British Indian army and the author of the celebrated memoir The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, for which he was awarded the 1930 James Tait Black Memorial Prize.-Life and career:Yeats-Brown was born in Genoa, the son of a British...

 and H. W. Luttman-Johnson.

Members of the January Club included Wing-Commander Sir Louis Greig; Lord Erskine

John Erskine, Lord Erskine

John Francis Ashley Erskine, Lord Erskine GCSI, GCIE was a British soldier, Conservative Party politician and administrator who served as Member of Parliament for Weston-super-Mare and Brighton...

, a Conservative and Unionist

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 MP and assistant Government whip; Lord William Montagu-Douglas-Scott

Lord William Montagu-Douglas-Scott

Lieutenant-Colonel Lord William Walter Montagu Douglas Scott MC was a Scottish aristocrat and politician....

, brother of the 8th Duke of Buccleuch

Walter Montagu-Douglas-Scott, 8th Duke of Buccleuch

Walter John Montagu Douglas Scott, 8th Duke of Buccleuch, 10th Duke of Queensberry KT GCVO TD PC was a politician and Conservative peer. He was the son of John Montagu Douglas Scott, 7th Duke of Buccleuch...

 and Conservative and Unionist MP; and Lord and Lady Russell of Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

. Sir Charles Petrie

Charles Petrie

Sir Charles Alexander Petrie, 3rd Baronet was a popular historian. Of Irish lineage, but born in Liverpool, he was educated at Oxford, and in 1927 succeeded to the family baronetcy....

discusses the club (and offers criticisms of Mosley's methods) in his 1972 memoir, A Historian Looks at his World.

External links

• Posting of 1948 document with claimed list of members