The Kindred
of the Kibbo Kift was a camping, hiking and handicraft group with ambitions to
bring world peace.
It was the
first of three movements in England associated with the charismatic artist and
writer John Hargrave (1894–1982). The Kindred was founded in 1920. Some members
continued into Hargrave's Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit, which was
established in 1931–32, and which became in 1935 the Social Credit Party of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This was wound up in 1951.
The words
Kibbo Kift come from archaic Cheshire dialect used to indicate 'proof of great
strength'. The group's initials have led some to assume a relationship to the
Ku Klux Klan but this has no basis in fact (and Hargrave took great pains to
correct this misapprehension in the popular press during the group's lifetime).
Kibbo Kift
had interests in regional geography and world culture that coexisted with
passionate ideas about national identity. The group has been claimed to be 'the
only genuine English national movement of modern times'.
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