Voting Station

James Larratt Battersby

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Cultist

The Resume

    (1907-September 29, 1955)
    Born in Stockport, England, United Kingdom
    Joined Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists
    Imprisoned during World War II (1940-43)
    Founded the League of Christian Reformers (1947), which claimed that Adolf Hitler was the second coming of Jesus Christ
    Wrote ‘The Aryan Testament’ (1951) and ‘The Holy Book of Adolf Hitler’ (1952)

Why he might be annoying:

    He left his wife and children to ‘serve Hitler.’
    Because he came from a family of hatmakers, he was nicknamed ‘the mad hatter.’ (And that was by his fellow fascists – and before he started the whole ‘Hitler is Christ’ business.)
    After a visit to South Africa to try to establish a Hitler memorial, he was banned from the country as an ‘undesirable immigrant.’ (1949)
    He disrupted the two minutes of silence to honor dead Commonwealth soldiers at the London Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday by shouting, ‘This is the day of judgement. Take the children out of London. Praise God and the eternal Christ. Heil Hitler,’ and giving a Nazi salute (November 9, 1952).
    He was eventually fined £10 for creating a breach of the peace by insulting behavior over the incident.
    He committed suicide by jumping into the paddles of a Liverpool ferryboat.
    He left behind a note reading, ‘My work here is complete. I follow the Fuehrer to glory and eternity. Through the sacrifice of the Aryan martyrs our world victory is assured. Heil Hitler.’

Why he might not be annoying:

    When a Member of Parliament wrote to the Home Secretary about arresting Battersby and his handful of followers, the Home Secretary replied that he no power to do so ‘merely because it was unpopular or ridiculous while its advocates committed no breach of the law.’
    When he was arrested after the Remembrance Sunday disturbance, he was carrying three affidavits from Harley Street doctors attesting to his sanity.
    He wound up decapitating himself when he committed suicide.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 13 Votes: 23.08% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 7 Votes: 85.71% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 96 Votes: 53.12% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 12 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 219 Votes: 53.42% Annoying