ABSTRACT

Whereas today the Soil Association represents a particular agricultural technology or an ‘alternative lifestyle’, for Jenks it was part of a movement to transform the social order. In his first known reference to ‘this “organic” movement’, from September 1944, he considered it to be ‘definitely N[ational] S[ocialist] in the broad cultural sense’, showing the continuity of his old and new positions. He continued: ‘It might play a very big part in the new grouping which is beginning to take shape. What we seem to need is a few broad principles common to us, monetary reformers, nationalists, husbandmen and the Churches.’1 As has been shown, there was already a web of connections between the ERC, RRA, Church and Countryside, the Kinship and elements from the BUF, which he had done much to foster.