John Gordon Hargrave was an artist, illustrator, cartoonist, copywriter, Boy Scout Commissioner, lexicographer, inventor, author and psychic healer. His achievements in each one of the fields were remarkable, yet he will be best remembered as 'White Fox' the dynamic leader of the Kibbo Kift, a non-political 'camping handicraft and world peace movement'.
Born in Sussex into a Quaker family, Hargrave spent much of his childhood in the Lake District, growing up with a fierce love of the natural world and autodidactic attitude to self-education. He worked as an illustrator and became involved with the Boy Scout movement.
Hargrave served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War, seeing action of the Battle of Gallipoli. The horrors of the war turned him against both modernity and militarism, leading to his disenchantment with Baden-Powell's paramilitary Boy Scouts. After returning to Britain, Hargrave launched the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift in August 1920. It admitted women and girls as well as men, which ruled out cooperation with the Boy Scouts.
Hargrave was appointed 'Head Man' and by 1924 was undisputed guru and leader of the movement, which had about 500 members. Hargrave believed that the Kibbo Kift could create a better society through individual self-discipline and the embrace of a artistic, natural and healthy lifestyle. They declared themselves to be neither politically right- or left-wing.
Hargrave continued to work as an artist and illustrator, defining the visual style of the Kibbo Kift and producing work for book publishers and advertisers. He also published a number of successful novels, including Harbottle: A Modern Pilgrim's Progress in 1924.
After twelve years the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift underwent an astonishing transformation to become the Green Shirts, "the green clad shock-troopers of the peoples' fighting front". Hargrave had been convinced by the Social Credit theories of Cliff Douglas. He merged Coventry's Legion of the Unemployed with the Kibbo Kift to form the Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit.
This became one of the uniformed, paramilitary political armies that marched the streets during the 1930s, fighting both fascist Blackshirts and communist Redshirts. Social Credit candidates contested parliamentary elections in 1935, 1945 and 1950 but by 1951 their decline convinced Hargrave to disband the Party.
Following the Second World War, Hargrave set himself up as a psychic healer, cartoonist and inventor. He had patented the Hargrave Automatic Navigator in 1938, which he believed solved various issues surrounding the use of maps in aeroplanes. It never saw widespread use. Hargrave earned his living as a cartoonist until his death in 1982. His voluminous personal papers, designs for the Kibbo Kift and photographs are now in the museum collection.