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Doctor Arnold Spencer-Leese (1877-1956) was a noted veterinarian, anti-Semite and fascist politician, born in 1877 in Lytham, Lancashire, England. He qualified as a veterinarian and moved to British India where he became an expert on the camel. He worked there for six years before becoming Camel Specialist for the East Africa Protectorate of the British Empire. He would remain an animal lover and teetotaler throughout his life.
He joined the British Army at the start of World War I and served on the Western Front. He returned to England where he continued his practice, retiring and publishing a book, The One-Humped Camel in Health and in Disease (1928).
During his practice, he developed racist sentiments about Jews, reportedly caused by his disgust for kashrut, a set of laws dictating the correct form for preparing food and slaughtering animals. He developed conspiracy theories relating to a perceived Jewish threat to the British Empire, and became involved with fascist groups, starting in 1924. As a member of the British Fascists he was elected to a local council that year, along with Henry Simpson.
He founded the unsuccessful Imperial Fascist League in 1929, finding his movement overtaken by Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. He greatly resent Mosley and dubbed him a "kosher fascist". Leese's anti-Semitism earned him a spell in prison in 1936 for creating a public mischief. He was one of the last leaders of the fascist movement to be interned in the United Kingdom at the beginning of World War II. Reputedly, he found a policeman leaning over a drawer in his bedroom when he returned home. Not being able to resist the temptation, Leese kicked the policeman in the buttocks.
Released after the end of the war, Leese returned to prison in 1947 for his part in aiding escaping members of the Waffen SS. Leese published his own magazine, Gothic Ripples, which was largely concerned with attacking the Jews. A mentor of the young Colin Jordan, Leese left Jordan his Notting Hill house (74 Princedale Road) on his death, which, as Arnold Leese House, would become Jordan's base of operations.
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