A. K. Chesterton

Arthur Kenneth Chesterton MC (1 May 1899 – 16 August 1973) was a politician and journalist who helped found extremist right-wing organisations in Britain, primarily in opposition to the break-up of the British Empire, and later adopting a broader anti-immigration stance.

Author G. K. Chesterton was his second cousin.

Born in Krugersdorp, South African Republic, A. K. Chesterton was sent to Berkhamsted School in England but persuaded his parents to let him return to South Africa in 1915. In October 1915 he added four years to his age and joined the British Army, who posted him to German East Africa, where he almost died of malaria and dysentery. After training as an officer, he served on the Western Front in 1918 with the London Regiment and won the Military Cross. His war experience was crucial to his repudiation of democracy.

After the war, he worked as a journalist for The Star in Johannesburg. He then secured a job with the Stratford-on-Avon Herald in England, where, as theatre critic from 1925 to 1929, he cultivated his aesthetic sense of societal decadence and cultural decline.

For the next four years, according to Chesterton's biographer, David Baker:

"he tilted at windmills and sharpened his skills as a controversialist while the Great Depression deepened and the bankruptcy of liberal and capitalist democracy became apparent. The corporate state, he came to believe, would rule in the interests of the whole nation, whereas democracy was the plaything of special interests and privilege."

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