Thomas Hunter

Thomas Hunter was born on 2nd October, 1872. Educated at Perth Academy he became a journalist and eventually owned his own newspaper.

A member of the Conservative Party, he was County Councillor for Perth (1919-32) and was chairman of the Perthshire Education Committee.

In November 1935 he was elected to the House of Commons to represent Perth. He became involved in right-wing politics and was one of the leading campaigners against Jews from Germany being allowed into the country.

In May 1939 Archibald Ramsay founded a secret society called the Right Club. This was an attempt to unify all the different right-wing groups in Britain. Or in the leader's words of "co-ordinating the work of all the patriotic societies". In his autobiography, The Nameless War, Ramsay argued: "The main object of the Right Club was to oppose and expose the activities of Organized Jewry, in the light of the evidence which came into my possession in 1938. Our first objective was to clear the Conservative Party of Jewish influence, and the character of our membership and meetings were strictly in keeping with this objective."

Members of the Right Club included Hunter, William Joyce, Anna Wolkoff, Joan Miller, A. K. Chesterton, Francis Yeats-Brown, Lord Redesdale, 5th Duke of Wellington, Duke of Westminster, E. H. Cole, John Stourton, Thomas Hunter, Aubrey Lees, Ernest Bennett, Charles Kerr, John MacKie, James Edmondson, Mavis Tate, Marquess of Graham, Margaret Bothamley, Earl of Galloway, H. T. Mills, Richard Findlay and Serrocold Skeels.

Thomas Hunter, who retired from the House of Commons in June 1945, died on 19th March, 1953.

Primary Sources

(1) Thomas Hunter, article in the Perthshire Constitutional and Journal (1st July, 1938)

Several Members of the House are preparing a manifesto condemning the conference of Freethinkers, and, it is whispered, all Members will be given the opportunity of adhibiting their names to this manifesto in order to make it clear to the people of this country that a majority of the House of Commons is hostile to this country being entered by aliens in order to take part in what they are asserting to be a 'Godless' conference.