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Neil Lanfear Francis Hawkins is a British writer and politician who is a proponent of Maximism in the Union of Britain. A leading Mosley associate, though one known for being more associated with the violent and militaristic fringe of the movement, Hawkins is the current Chief Officer of the London Blackshirts and a travelling acquisitions officer of surgical instruments.
Biography[]
Early Life and the Civil War[]
Little is known of Hawkins' early life though it is known that he is a descendant of the English sailor, Sir John Hawkins. According to his personal testimony, he joined Rotha Lintorn-Orman's British Conservative League around its inception (despite his young age) and both his parents were killed in the civil war after a shelling attack. Hawkins, with his sister, were made war refugees, being forced to flee South.
Post-Civil War Activity[]
Following the Civil War, Hawkins had only turned 18 and was living in an informal refugee camp in the South of England. Hawkins claimed his sister had moved on, found administrative work in London and moved in with her future husband while he had preferred to remain at the camp. Hawkins described the conditions as 'squalid' and that he felt compelled to steal food from other refugees to support himself. Early into 1926, he abandoned the camp to turn to banditry, mostly robbing rural farmers with a band of Loyalist criminals. Hawkins was arrested by the SOE but only briefly interned when he turned over evidence against his fellow bandits. In a later writing, he called it the 'most thrilling' event of his life.
He followed his sister, who had since moved to Coventry but was unable to secure long-term work prospects. Without qualifications he became a travelling salesman and acquisitions officer of surgical equipment and cleaning products for the fledgling NHS as a means to support himself. In Coventry he reconnected with the far-right, after having learned that Rotha Lintorn-Orman had reorganised the remnants of the loyalist partisans and other counter-revolutionary movements into the Legion of St. George. Interested and eager to return to political activism, Hawkins registered his interest and relocated to Essex, where Lintorn-Orman was based out of. As a travelling NHS officer, Hawkins had to travel frequently and he believed this could of be immense use to the movement but was dismayed when Lintorn-Orman felt his efforts were better spent focusing on a single area.
Hawkins later abandoned the Legion in early 1928 after being chastised by Lintorn-Orman for spreading the party newsletter around the towns and cities he visited as part of his job. Despite Hawkin's own claims, other members recounted Lintorn-Orman was annoyed that Hawkins had let himself be court and only swerved an arrest after agreeing to bin his copies of the newspaper. Nevertheless, he turned critical of the movement and later recounted:
| “ | I was never really sure what it was meant to be and heard about it on one of those right-wing journals that got passed around. I had already known Rotha from my time at the BCL and she was as ineffective now as she was then. She had no idea what she wanted it to be or do but was obsessed with destroying socialism. Most of the people she surrounded herself with were old and wealthy and they had no desire to fight for what they wanted, they expected people like me to do it for them. I knew I could never fit in among these people but I tried none-the-less. | ” |
After abandoning far-right politics, Hawkins focused primarily on his job, describing himself as a 'miserable bastard' and found himself deeply depressed. With no real career prospects or the potential for advancement in his job, he confined himself to reading on French radical politics in his spare time. In 1930, Lintorn-Orman attempted to re-solicit his support for another one of her ventures, but he was warned off by his ex-associate, Arnold Leese. Nevertheless, he briefly began to work with her again though this was cut short in the spring of that year.
The PRP and Later Politics[]
While in Birmingham, Hawkins had learned that the Mosley associate, Robert Forgan, was planning on holding an induction to rally for prospective recruits to the Popular Revolution Party. Hawkins was vaguely aware of the PRP and Mosley but by chance decided to attend the rally and he was immediately impressed by the professional aesthetic and youthful nature of the rally. Hawkins described Forgan as a 'shrewd but nonetheless charismatic speaker' and was impressed by a lecture on modern science and how it can aid in day-to-day life. After the meeting, Hawkins and Forgan spoke, with Hawkins declaring that he had been 'immediately' converted and felt the contrast of this 'youthful, gallant and modern movement showed up everything that was wrong with Rotha and her stuffy compatriots'. Hawkins immediately cut ties with the far-right, but not before he convinced some his comrades to embrace 'the centrism of the future' that he felt the PRP embodied.
Hawkins initially joined as a rank-and-file member but quickly rose through the ranks of his local Coventry branch and would often help organise others as he traveled around the country. In early 1931 he was able to relocate his home to London and began to work at the PRP headquarters part-time in between his travelling around the country. As he would travel to various branches, Hawkins became involved in helping set up training programmes for local election agents, local PRP offices and blackshirt training courses. While he was particularly valued by Mosley for his skill as an organiser and bureaucrat, Hawkins was a firm militarist and this alienated him from much of the movement. While he did find some common cause with John Beckett, who had introduced Hawkins to the works of French socialist intellectuals, Beckett disliked Hawkins 'low-brow thuggishness' and believed he could have been an obstacle to the PRP's professional image. F.M. Box, the Deputy Leader of the Blackshirts behind Eric Hamilton Piercy, disliked Hawkins calls for the PRP to become a wholly paramilitary movement, and blocked Hawkins' attempts to become a full-time salaried member of the party.
Nevertheless, any hopes he could have become salaried were dashed when Mosley announced his intentions to disband the PRP and 'graft' it into Labour proper via the use individual and other affiliate membership. Hawkins opposed this measure and sought to keep the PRP an independent entity lest the Mosleyite cause be 'polluted by pacifist and liberal crankery'. Indeed, Hawkins proposed going in the alternative direction and disaffiliating the PRP altogether as an 'independent action force' free to chart its own course. This was ridiculed by the likes of Bill Risdon and Beckett who felt that Hawkins was delusional and seeking personal glory. While he found an initial ally in his old associate, William Joyce, he too quickly turned on Hawkins when he learned that Hawkins intended to become Mosley's deputy and 'streamline' the movement.
Ultimately the merger went ahead and Hawkins followed Mosley and the PRP into Labour, eventually becoming part of the New Labour Association (NULA). Hawkins hopes of a salaried position were abandoned and instead he sought to improve his standing in the movement, focusing on oratory and organisation at the country's various Blackshirt branches and Action offices. Despite earlier misgivings, Mosley remained impressed with Hawkins bureaucratic work and made him the Chief Officer of the London Blackshirts, effectively making him the regional head of Maximist activities for the capital territory. He soon gained a reputation as a workaholic at the Maximist headquarters, with Harold Nicolson describing his obsessive work habits and wearing of his blackshirt uniform under a regular suit unnerving. He advocated a membership based on unmarried men, like himself, and argued that they would give the most fanatical devotion to the movement but these plans never went ahead as the consensus held it would make the movement too narrow. Hawkins still operates as the CO in London and is considered one of Mosley's most loyal confidants.