Rotha Lintorn-Orman
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Rotha Beryl Lintorn Orman (1895-1935), known as Rotha Lintorn-Orman, was a pioneer for women in British politics who went on to found the earliest British Fascist movement.
Born in Kensington London, she was the daughter of Charles Edward Orman, a Major from the Essex Regiment, and her maternal grandfather was Field Marshal Sir John Lintorn Arabin Simmons.[1]
She served in World War I as a member of the Women’s Reserve Ambulance and was decorated for her contribution at the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917.[2] In these early years she developed a strong sense of British nationalism, and became a staunch monarchist and imperialist. She continued her work in the field of military medicine after the war, becoming head of the Red Cross Motor School to train drivers in the battlefield.
Following her war service, she founded the British Fascisti in 1923 as a response to the growing strength of the Labour Party, a source of great anxiety for the virulently anti-Communist Lintorn-Orman.[3] Financed by her mother, Lintorn-Orman's party nonetheless struggled due to her preference for remaining within the law and her continuing ties to the fringes of the Conservative Party.[4] The group's ties to the establishment were demonstrated by its close involvement in the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies during the 1926 General Strike. The party was subject to a number of schisms, such as when the more radical members resigned to form the National Fascisti, and ultimately lost members to the Imperial Fascist League and the British Union of Fascists when these groups emerged.
Rumours about her private life began to damage her reputation, until her mother stopped her funding amid lurid tales of alcohol, drugs and orgies.[5] She died in March 1935, with her organization all but defunct.
