Oswald Mosley was knocked unconscious by demonstrators in Liverpool moments after giving a fascist salute.
Mosley arrived in the city on October 10 1937 with the intention of holding a rally starting on Queens Drive before touring around Liverpool preaching his fascist beliefs. While the former Labour MP for Smethwick in the West Midlands' anti-Semitic and racist politics found success in some pockets of London, they failed spectacularly in trying to establish a foothold among Liverpool's working class voters.
Just two years before the outbreak of WWII Mosley's British Union of Fascists' followers were growing and he decided to visit parts of the country where he didn't have as much support with the aim of converting the working classes to a new fascist ideology.
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When Mosley got up on a van he gave the crowd a fascist salute but before he could speak he was pelted with stones and one hit him on the head. Mosley was knocked unconscious and taken to Walton Hospital where he was discharged a week later with a concussion and a head wound.
A report published two months later in the Glasgow Herald newspaper said: "Sir Oswald Mosley was hit on the head by a stone and knocked semi-conscience immediately he stood on the top of a loud-speaker van to address an open-air meeting at Queens Drive, Liverpool, yesterday.
"As the van was being driven to a piece of waste land, hundreds of missiles were thrown, Sir Oswald, had not had time to utter a word when a large stone hit him on the temple and he fell on his face. Mounted police who were standing by in a neighbouring yard, immediately rushed out and charged the crowd back.
"A Fascist bodyguard stood by to guard Sir Oswald in spite of showers of bricks from large sections of the crowd."
Liverpool wasn't the only place where working class voters kicked out fascists in the 1930s - Mosley’s fascists were also attacked by workers, anti-fascists and communists in Devon, Manchester, Newcastle and Stockton.
Mosley's fascists beliefs have been documented in recent series of BBC hit Peaky Blinders. Reality crosses over with fiction on the show which shows the aristocrat and his wife Diana Mosley looking to spread their fascist web across the UK.
Mosley's 'Black shirts' were disbanded in 1940 when it was proscribed by the British government after the start of WWII. Mosley was imprisoned but released after the war when he tried to form new fascist groups. These also faced stiff opposition and Mosley was chased out the country to France.
