Researching John Read

A former member of the Conservative Party and chairman of the Blackburn Young Conservatives, Read left to join the NF in 1973 having addressed a rally against the arrival of Ugandan Asians in Britain earlier that same year in Blackburn.

A strong orator, Read rose quickly through the NF ranks, his style drawing comparisons to American politician George Wallace, to whom he also bore a passing physical resemblance. Read was later denounced as a drunkard by Andrew Fountaine.

After securing the support of potential rival Roy Painter, Read was elected Chairman of the National Front in 1974, with the neo-imperialist John Tyndall his deputy chairman, in what was regarded as a vote by the 'populist' or Strasserite wing of the party against the authoritarian Tyndall.

Later Read himself "drifted" into the populist camp but was only narrowly re-elected as Chairman in 1975. He tried to expel Tyndall from the party but Read's decision was overturned at the High Court.

Read then quit the NF along with many of his followers to establish the National Party (NP), which won two seats on Blackburn Council, one of them held by Read, but their other councillor was disqualified for election irregularities.

Read designed the front cover motif for the British edition of Arthur Butz's Holocaust denial book The Hoax of the Twentieth Century which was circulated by the NP. After the murder of a young Sikh man in a suspected racist attack, Read remarked during a speech at an NP meeting, "One down, a million to go", which effectively ended his presentation of a more 'moderate' stance. Read was later acquitted of making the statement in a decision which aroused "furious controversy".

Following Read's death in 1985, Nick Griffin asserted that Kingsley Read had been working with the knowledge of other leading members of the NF to feed false information to Searchlight magazine, although John Tyndall was convinced that Kingsley Read had been a double agent. Searchlight stated that Read had supplied them with the entire membership list of the National Party.

In 1984, Read appeared in The other face of terror, a British documentary about far-right groups. Read openly admitted designing and helping to distribute Holocaust denial material.

Read was born in Chalfont St Giles. He is widely associated with the productions of Gerry Anderson. Having served as director of photography on Four Feather Falls (1960), Crossroads to Crime (1960), Supercar (1961–62), Stingray (1964-65) and Thunderbirds (1965–66), Read worked on the latter show's second series, the film Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) and the subsequent series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967–68) as associate producer. He returned to cinematography for the film Doppelgänger (1969). When filming clouds at 12,000 feet for Supercar, Read told Anderson that he only had one lung.

Read's other credits include the 1954 film Passenger to Tokyo and the 1970s TV series The Adventures of Rupert Bear (cinematographer), as well as the series Cloppa Castle and The Munch Bunch (producer). He is also known for producing and directing Here Comes Mumfie in 1975.

Read died in 2006, aged 85, after suffering injuries in a car crash. He had been diagnosed with cancer prior to his death.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he moved with his parents to Saint Louis, Missouri in 1842 and then to Milwaukee, Wisconsin Territory in 1847 and then to Manitowoc County. He was in the publishing business. Read served in the 14th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. In 1867, he moved to Kewaunee, Wisconsin and was the editor of the Kewaunee Enterprise. Read served in the Wisconsin State Senate in 1874 and 1865 as a Democrat and then in the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1881. He had to resign from the Wisconsin Assembly because of ill health. He died in Louisville, Kentucky while trying to recover his health.

He was the son of James Reed.

He was an officer in Oliver Cromwell's new model army, and a soldier from the age of sixteen. When Charles II of England was restored to the throne, Reed left for America. He settled first in Providence, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. In Providence, he married Anne Samson Derby. He later moved to Rye, Province of New York, in 1684, where he lived for three or four years. He then established himself in the western part of Norwalk, at a house he built on the eastern side of the Five Mile River, north of the Old Post Road and nearly two miles from the Long Island Sound at a place called Reed's Farms. His name is found among the records of the town of Norwalk in 1687. John Reed was admitted to the bar in 1708 in Norwalk, Connecticut. His house was used for a meeting place for some years. His wife died and he married again to the Widow Scofield from Stamford.

He died in Norwalk, in the ninety-eighth year of his age, in 1730, and was interred in a tomb on his own farm.

Read was born in Boulder, Western Australia, to Alma (née Clifford) and George Henry Read. He attended Eastern Goldfields High School before going on to study teaching at the University of Western Australia and Claremont Teachers College. Between 1959 and 1983, Read worked as a schoolteacher at various primary schools in Perth and regional Western Australia. From 1970, he was a deputy principal, filling the position at schools in Boulder and Pinjarra. Read entered parliament at the 1983 state election, narrowly defeating Richard Shalders (the sitting Liberal member in the seat of Murray) for the new seat of Mandurah. He increased his majority at the 1986 election, but at the 1989 election was defeated by the Liberal Party's Roger Nicholls. After leaving parliament, Read worked in various consulting and managerial positions for the state and federal governments. From December 1992 to December 1994, he served as Administrator of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, one of the Australian Indian Ocean Territories. Read married Rosemary Madge Barker in 1960, with whom he five children. One of his sons, Keith John Read, was also a member of parliament.