ABSTRACT
The question regarding the number of individuals recruited into the ranks of the BUF between 1932 and 1940 has frequently engaged the attention of historians of British fascism. A number of impressionistic interpretations have been attempted. Skidelsky, working on a ratio of three non-active members to one active member, calculated in 1975 that the BUF's total national membership temporarily peaked at 40,000 during the period of Daily Mail support between January and July 1934.1 The membership then dwindled rapidly in the wake of the hostile publicity that followed the violence at the Olympia meeting, stabilised between 1935 and 1938, before returning to its 1934 peak of approximately 40,000 by 1939. Skidelsky (1981) later revised his 1939 estimate, suggesting a more modest membership base of 20-25,000.2 Skidelsky's revisionist assessment was a departure from the earlier 'conventional' interpretation originally sketched by Colin Cross.
