36 Facts About John Hargrave

John Hargrave was a Utopian thinker, a believer in both science and magic, and a figure-head for the Social Credit movement in British politics.

In 1908, the family moved to Latimer where in 1909 John Hargrave joined the First Chorleywood Scouts, a group of Baden Powell's Boy Scouts.

John Hargrave was given a year-long trial as a cartoonist on the Evening Times.

John Hargrave became a devotee of the naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton, and one of the leading Scout authorities on Woodcraft.

When World War I broke out, John Hargrave joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and saw action at the Battle of Gallipoli.

John Hargrave called for a new national scheme for character-building and physical training, and the result was the foundation of the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift in August 1920.

John Hargrave was initially appointed 'Head Man' as a temporary measure, but by 1924 had succeeded in becoming the undisputed leader.

John Hargrave was a strong believer in Darwinian evolution, holding that Kibbo Kift training would produce morally upright and healthy individuals, through whom the human species as a whole would evolve into a better state.

John Hargrave believed that building better individuals was the way of building a better society, thus standing apart from those on the left and right who believed in the State as the main vehicle for social change.

Many developed an intense personal loyalty to John Hargrave, remaining with him throughout the Kindred's transformation into the Green Shirts, and the Social Credit Party.

John Hargrave controlled the visual style of the movement, designing the 'official' robes, badges, symbols, theatre sets and regalia himself: although individual members were encouraged to design and make their own personal totems.

John Hargrave had less success as an artist outside the movement, despite trying to establish himself as a portrait or landscape painter.

John Hargrave enjoyed more public success as a novelist, publishing a best-seller Harbottle: A Modern Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come in 1924, and following it with a succession of popular novels published by Duckworth's.

John Hargrave took up the creed with fervour, attracted by its seemingly-scientific 'truth' and its sense of mission.

John Hargrave joined up with the Legion of the Unemployed in Coventry in 1930, and furnished them with green shirts and berets.

John Hargrave designed a striking new flag for his Social Credit movements, the green and black double K device, which he christened the 'Key Symbol'.

John Hargrave was impressed by the success of the Social Credit Party of Alberta.

John Hargrave soon travelled to Alberta, frustrated at the lack of progress that the Social Credit government there was making.

John Hargrave was appointed an economic adviser to the Government of Alberta and was disowned by Douglas.

John Hargrave left Canada in 1936, returning to find the Social Credit Party in disarray after the Public Order Act 1936 banned the wearing of uniforms by non-military personnel.

Undeterred, John Hargrave steered the Social Credit Party into a more evangelical mood, adopting quasi-religious slogans and organising public 'Services of National Regeneration'.

John Hargrave broke with Ezra Pound, an episode which underlined his opposition to Fascism.

The Social Credit Party was mothballed during the war, although John Hargrave tried to keep his ideas alive through a weekly newsletter, The Message from John Hargrave.

John Hargrave was urged to stand for Parliament in the 1945 election, but did not: only returning to public politics in 1950 when he stood as a candidate in Hackney North and Stoke Newington in the 1950 general election.

The 551 votes he received convinced John Hargrave to give up, and by 1951 he had disbanded the Party.

In 1937 John Hargrave became obsessed with solving the technological problems of using maps in moving aeroplanes.

The invention lay fallow until 1976 when John Hargrave sued the British Government, claiming that the moving map display supplied by Britain to the supersonic Concorde, was, in fact, his Automatic Navigator.

John Hargrave's claim was taken up by journalists, resulting eventually in a Public Enquiry.

John Hargrave insisted he was only asking for recognition, rather than any financial recompense, but the Public Enquiry found against him.

John Hargrave became convinced of his own powers and set up as a healer, offering a variety of techniques.

John Hargrave's work appeared in Cavalcade, The Sketch and Time and Tide.

John Hargrave submitted a stream of manuscripts, radio plays and film scripts to producers and publishers, always searching for opportunities to realise his ideas: he continued to believe that Social Credit was the solution to the world's economic problems.

John Hargrave died on 21 November 1982, aged 88 at his home in Branch Hill Lodge, Hampstead.

John Hargrave married Ruth Clark, the daughter of the engineer William Clark on 28 November 1919.

John Hargrave remarried in 1968, his new wife being Diana, the actress Gwendolyn Florence Gray.

John Hargrave's artwork, including designs for the Kibbo Kift, work as a commercial artist and family photographs are held in the Museum of London.