Battling on the home front

Graham Briggs recounts how generous Oldhamers strived to aid war-torn Spain…

In the late 1930s, Oldham was enduring hard times. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, its renowned cotton industry was on its uppers, and unemployment and poverty were widespread.

Yet despite this, the people of the town responded promptly and generously to the cry of help that went up from the beleaguered Spanish Republic when it came under attack from fascist generals aided and abetted by Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy.

The framed Roll of Honour of Oldham Brigaders who were killed in Spain: Cliff Wolstencroft, Billy Jackson, Harry Heap, Clem Beckett, Ken Bradbury and Joe Lees. 

Of the ten men from Oldham and district who volunteered to fight for the Spanish Republic in the International Brigades, six of them gave their lives. Those who survived, having given up their jobs, risked their lives and suffered wounds and privation at the battlefront, returned home to rejoin the campaign to help the people of Spain.

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in the summer of 1936 provoked an immediate response from large swathes of British society, who saw the dangers of fascism. Nowhere was this response channelled more resolutely towards the suffering Spanish people than in Oldham. As in other towns and cities across the land, supporters of the Republic organised marches, rallies, meetings, concerts and bazaars to raise funds for what became known as the Aid Spain movement.

The committee in Oldham was one of more than a thousand formed in every city and every large town, with the overall aim of getting humanitarian aid to the people of Spain.

At first, however, they encountered obstruction and downright opposition. When, a month into the war, Secretary Mayall of the Oldham Communist Party applied to the Council’s Watch Committee for permission to have a street collection for Spaniards 'in need of food and other necessities’, he was met with a curt response: that the application ‘be not granted’. The decision was made by majority vote, and the seven-man committee probably split on party lines, the minority being three Labour councillors.

Yet it was to be another year before Labour Party leaders became bold enough to condemn the British government’s farcical policy of non-intervention in Spain – a policy that allowed free rein to the militaristic powers of Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, who, from the outset, had poured in men, materials, ammunition, tanks and planes to assist the unlawful revolt of Spanish generals against a democratically elected government.

Meanwhile, the people of Oldham got on with raising money for Aid Spain. The main activity of the Communist Party in Oldham and elsewhere became raising money for food parcels. Prominent among the organisers in Oldham were the secretary of the Young Communist League (YCL), Les Bates, a 29-year-old hairdresser from Fitton Hill, and his comrade, Ben Duffy, 28, from Derker.

The campaign, however, soon broadened its base, attracting supporters and workers from other organisations in Oldham. James Caro, president of the Oldham and District Sunday School Union, became a leading organiser, joined by rank-and-file members of the Labour Party and the Independent Labour Party (ILP).

Another notable supporter was women’s suffragist Marjory Lees, a venerated local philanthropist and former Liberal councillor, who echoed the need for humanitarian help to an estimated three million refugees driven from their homes by war and the fear of barbaric reprisals at the hands of advancing fascist troops.

In January 1937, Oldham Trades & Labour Council, meeting at the Co-op Hall, King Street, Oldham, heard from two Labour Party MPs who had recently returned from Spain. William Dobbie (Rotherham) and Frederick Seymour Cocks (Broxtowe) expressed firm support for the Spanish Republic and the International Brigades, and a collection was made.

It is a sad but admirable fact that men who gave their lives serving as International Brigaders also played an active part in fund-raising for Spanish Aid before leaving for Spain.

Brigader Harry Heap (aka Harry Rawson), the first Oldhamer to be killed in action, in December 1936, was honoured with a memorial meeting, attended by 300 people, held the following February at Greenacres Co-op Hall. Tributes were paid on behalf of Oldham Trades & Labour Council, the Communist Party, the ILP, and the Labour Party. The sum of £7-6s-4d was collected for ‘relief of distress in Spain’.

Responding to appeals for foods such as sugar, coffee and milk, made via the Oldham Chronicle, Brigader Joe Lees, later killed in action at Brunete, was among workers who went house to house collecting foodstuffs. Likewise, only a short time before he travelled to Spain, Brigader Ken Bradbury, killed in action at Teruel, was busy on the streets of Oldham collecting money for Spanish Aid.

Saddleworth-born Brigader Clem Beckett, killed in action in Jarama, had originally gone to Spain as the driver of an ambulance, part of a convoy of vehicles dispatched by volunteer workers for Spanish Medical Aid.

Funds for medical aid received a boost when, in early February 1937, an appeal was launched in the Oldham Chronicle by Dr Paterson of Didsbury, on behalf of the Spanish Medical Aid Committee (SMAC), for £450 to provide an ambulance for Spain. It was noted that £400 had been raised in Manchester towards the organisation’s central funds. SMAC had been formed by the Socialist Medical Association and the Hospital Socialist Society in August 1936.

At the end of March 1937, secretaries of local youth and religious organisations called a meeting at the Friends Meeting House on Greaves Street to discuss setting up an Oldham branch of the National Joint Committee (NJC) for Spanish Relief. Les Bates and James Caro, together with Miss D Nadin, emerged as elected officials, and the new body was given an immediate fillip by a £5 donation towards running costs from Miss Marjory Lees.

Bates appealed for support in a letter to the Oldham Chronicle, and the first open meeting of the branch was held in the Friends Meeting House in early April. Soon afterwards, a well-organised meeting of the Oldham NJC resolved to prioritise fundraising and to arrange a public meeting with prominent national speakers. In July, the Oldham NJC put an ‘Ambulance for Spain’ on display at the Star Inn, Union St, to help with fundraising.

Yet, Spanish Aid was still not without its detractors, and those who, for political reasons, wished to undermine it. In January 1937, the Civil Service Clerical Association, a trade union, had agreed to donate £100 for ‘relief of distress in Spain arising from the civil war’. The donation was challenged in the Chancery Court by an individual union member, but the challenge failed.

The Basque Children’s Committee (BCC), an offshoot of the NJC, managed the evacuation and maintenance of around 4,000 Basque child refugees from northern Spain to about 40 communities across the UK, some in Lancashire. The children arrived in Southampton aboard the SS Habana in May 1937, soon after the notorious massacre of civilians by Hitler’s aerial Condor Legion in the historic Basque town of Guernica.

Oldham International Brigader Charlie Armitage sponsored Basque brothers Angel and Julio Lasheras as part of this evacuation. He paid ten shillings a week into a fund to provide for them whilst they were in the UK. The brothers kept in regular contact with Charlie, with many letters and photographs, even after they returned to Spain*. In July, the Oldham Relief Committee, in a town centre meeting presided over by Mayor Frank Tweedale, rallied support for the Basque children.

A popular venue for open-air meetings in Oldham, especially on Sundays, was at the gates of Alexandra Park, where on 11 July the Oldham NJC held a fund-raising rally which produced £1-3s-6d (roughly £90 today). As the war in Spain wore on, memorial meetings for fallen Brigaders became an all too regular event.

Oldham volunteer Clem Beckett.

Because of his Manchester connections in the world of speedway, the memorial service for Clem Beckett was held at the Coliseum theatre in Ardwick Green, under the auspices of the Manchester Spanish Aid committee. Speakers included Clem’s widow Lida, actress Dame Sybil Thorndike, and Dave Springhall, senior commissar of the British Battalion.

The death of Joe Lees was first marked by the publication of a tribute leaflet sold for a penny, with funds going towards the Oldham Dependants and Wounded Aid Committee. Once again, Bates and Duffy were prominent among the organisers.

The national Dependants Aid Committee was a new fund set up in June 1937 to help bereaved families cope in the aftermath of Brigaders being killed – and to help rehabilitate the wounded. It assisted by way of grants, allowances and payment of medical expenses. Between June 1937 and October 1938, it raised over £41,000 (more than £3.5 million in today’s money).

At the December memorial meeting for Lees, held in the King Street Co-op Hall, tributes were paid by Brigaders George Leeson, George Aitken and local Brigader Albert Charlesworth, from Delph, Saddleworth.

Charlesworth had returned from Spain in the autumn to embark on a speaking tour for Spanish Aid, and, at a November meeting in the Co-op Hall, he had helped raise £14-4s-9d (worth more than £1200 in today’s money).

After Oldham Brigader Ken Bradbury was killed in action at Teruel in January 1938, the Oldham Dependants Aid Committee published a memorial leaflet, again organised by Bates and Duffy. This was followed by a memorial meeting in the Co-op Hall, which charged an admission fee of 3d, and was addressed by Marjorie Lees, Prof. J B S Haldane of London and Dr Margaret Camps from Barcelona.

Repatriated Brigaders (L-R) Joe Buckley, Charles Hanson and Albert Charlesworth in the offices of the Oldham Chronicle, December 1938. They were there to publicise the sale of Christmas cards for Spanish Aid.

Following the withdrawal of the Brigades in October 1938, repatriated Brigaders carried on the fight to alleviate the suffering of the Spanish people. At Christmas, Brigaders Albert Charlesworth, Charles Hanson, and Joseph Buckley attended the offices of the Oldham Chronicle to publicise fundraising for a Manchester food ship.

Fittingly, they were welcomed home as they stepped onto the platform at Oldham Central station by Les Bates, on behalf of the Oldham Dependants Aid Committee. Bates had been the rock of the town’s Aid Spain campaign. He had worked tirelessly for two-and-a-half years, been involved in every fundraising initiative, attended almost every demonstration and meeting, and helped to achieve a broad-based movement, drawing support from all sections of the population.

Fitting too that the repatriated Brigaders were guests of honour at a reception in the Co-op Hall – scene of so many passionate denunciations of fascism and fundraising events for Spanish Aid.

In January 1939, the International Brigade Association organised a ‘convoy’ of repatriated Brigaders that travelled to UK towns and cities publicising the tremendous efforts the International Brigade. When the convoy called in at the Co-op Hall, the main business of the event was to promote the collection for Spain, raising £36 (more than £3,000 in today’s money).

In the dying days of the defeated Spanish Republic, as Franco’s vengeful forces occupied the areas that had resisted him most determinedly, Britain’s aid was focused on stocking and chartering food ships. Throughout January and February 1939, Oldham continued to raise funds for the Manchester food ship, which eventually sailed from Liverpool.

At the end of the civil war in 1939, thousands of Spaniards fled to France. After the fall of France, they became prisoners of the Germans, and some were used as forced labourers. Incredibly, although thousands of exiled Spaniards went on to fight in the British Army, many of their countrymen liberated by the British in Europe were interned in camps in England, including Camp No. 168 at Glen Mill in Oldham.

Later, around 226 of them were moved to a ‘Spanish Camp’ at Hall o’th Hill near Chorley. Their cause was rightly taken up by Brigader Sam Wild and the Dependants’ and Wounded Aid Committee, but there were inexcusable delays in their release.

Richard Baxell, in his comprehensive history of the British Battalion, 'Unlikely Warriors' (Aurum Press, 2012), has calculated that over the course of the Spanish Civil War, British Aid Spain organisations raised between one and two million pounds (equivalent to £177million in 2026).

The Lancashire town of Oldham can be rightly proud of its citizens who fought and sacrificed for the Spanish people. We must ensure that their efforts are never forgotten.