The Reality of 'The Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout' of 1932

In my article on the myth of the ‘Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout’ (1) I pointed out that Benny Rothman and his short-lived ‘The British Workers’ Sports Federation’ – which was a front for the British Communist Party - was really a much smaller affair than Rothman claimed with only 100-200 attendees (2) where-as Rothman claimed 600-800. (3)

I further showed the significant and utterly disproportionate jewish involvement in the ‘Mass Trespass’ and that local members of the working class utterly repudiated it and sided with the police instead.

I also pointed out that the ‘Mass Trespass’ was never intended as anything other than a political stunt (4) and was never even envisioned as a ramble. (5) It also never got anywhere near Kinder Scout (6) which had been being regularly and freely transversed by British ramblers for years and even decades before hand. (7)

The simple fact was that the ‘Mass Trespass’ was completely unnecessary and actively hindered rather than helped the access movement. (8)

But the question I want to discuss here is how a failed and decidedly unpopular political stunt by the British Communist Party in 1932 became a mythic event that many still claim was a major turning point in the struggle of the access movement.

In the first instance the ‘Mass Trespass’ was hardly unique nor in any way successful as – for example - Bert Ward of the Sheffield Clarion Ramblers organized a second mass trespass on 18th September 1932 which was conducted by a variety of ramblers associations based upon his research that the Duke Norfolk had illegally closed off a public right of way from the Upper Derwent Valley to Bar Dyke with 200 ramblers showing up being escorted by six police officers. (9)

They were opposed by circa 100 gamekeepers and estate staff representing the Duke of Norfolk and after a brief scuffle; the ramblers sat down and ate lunch then returned with the police having made their point. (10) No arrests were made. (11)

There was another smaller attempt at a mass trespass on 16th October, but this was stopped by mounted police and police dog handlers also without further arrests or violence. (12)

Both of these ‘Mass Trespasses’ were infinitely more organized and successful – as well as based upon detailed research and rambling experience – than Rothman’s ‘Mass Trespass’ but these are forgotten because they weren’t publicised by the ‘Manchester Guardian’ (the ‘Guardian’ today) nor did Bert Ward engage in later autobiographical hagiography to re-write history to make himself seem important.

Instead, he let his actions speak louder than his words.

Unlike Benny Rothman.

The legend of the ‘Mass Trespass’ was created in the 1960s and 1970s by Marxist and leftist historians and then was crystalized in 1982 when Benny Rothman was invited by the Ramblers Association to be part of the 50-year celebration of the Mass Trespass despite the fact that the Ramblers Association had rightly and bitterly opposed Rothman in 1932. (13)

The primary vehicles of the ‘Battle of Kinder Scout’ myth were a BBC 2 television film in 1970 called ‘The Battle of Kinder Scout’ which was based entirely on uncritically repeating Rothman’s claims (14) and Benny Rothman’s 1982 autographical book ‘The 1932 Kinder Trespass’. (15)

The fact that Rothman simply and repeatedly made things up that were not checked until much later didn’t help matters either. (16) By the time that they were checked; it was nineteen years after BBC 2’s ‘The Battle of Kinder Scout’ was first aired and seven years after Rothman’s own hagiography appeared. Even then it was an academic not a popular book so the truth about the ‘Mass Trespass’ never really had a chance to be heard before Marxists had seized upon and promulgated the myth of the ‘Mass Trespass’ and lionized the jews who organized it at the expense of both historical truth and the almost entirely non-jewish access movement.

The truth is simply that the then recently renamed Ramblers Association successfully lobbied to get the ‘Access to Mountains Act’ (1939) passed but it was subsequently heavily diluted by hostile Conservative MPs. (17) But this act was a dead letter by the start of the Second World War later that year. (18)

It was the renewed lobbying by the Ramblers Association and the Council for the Protection of Rural England after the Second World War which eventually triggered the ‘National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act’ (1949) with the Peak District being created in 1951. (19)

The truth then is that Benny Rothman’s ‘Mass Trespass’ of 1932 had absolutely nothing to do with the opening of rural England to ramblers nor the creation of National Parks. That was the Rambler’s Association and its forerunners – which consisted almost entirely of non-jewish white Britons – not Benny Rothman and his short-lived and heavily jewish communist organization ‘The British Workers’ Sports Federation’.

References

(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/benny-rothman-and-the-jewish-myth

(2) Tom Stephenson, 1989, ‘Forbidden Land: The Struggle for Access to Mountain and Moorland’, 1st Edition, Manchester University Press: Manchester, p. 155

(3) David Hey, 2011, ‘Kinder Scout and the Legend of the Mass Trespass’, Agricultural History Review, Vol. 59, No. 2, p. 210

(4) Ibid., p. 209

(5) Ibid.

(6) Stephenson, Op. Cit., p. 153

(7) Hey, Op. Cit., pp. 200-201; 206

(8) Ibid., pp. 199; 213; Stephenson, Op. Cit., p. 163

(9) Hey, Op. Cit., p. 213

(10) Ibid., pp. 213-214

(11) Ibid., p. 214

(12) Ibid.

(13) Ibid., p. 216

(14) Stephenson, Op. Cit., pp. 154; 160

(15) Ibid., p. 153, n. 2

(16) Ibid., pp. 157-159

(17) Hey, Op. Cit., pp. 214-215

(18) Ibid., p. 215

(19) Ibid.