This collection comprises the administrative files of the Dorset West District of the British Union of Fascists and of the Dorchester Constituency of Union Movement, and related correspondence compiled by Robert Saunders, dated mainly from 1935 to 1952.

In the extent of its coverage this collection appears to be a unique survival in that it includes the almost complete administrative files of a District of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and of its post-war successor, the Union Movement. Files relate both to pre-war and post-war administration in the Dorset West District of the BUF, later the Dorchester Constituency of Union Movement, and include correspondence both with the local members and with the administration of the National Headquarters.

The person responsible for ensuring the survival of the documents was Robert Saunders, who was the District Treasurer for Dorset West before he became District Officer in 1936, and who, as a farmer, was particularly concerned about the depressed state of agriculture in the Depression. There is also correpondence and papers relating to the Defence Regulation 18B internment period after May 1940. In common with many other leading members of British Union of Fascists, Saunders was interned for a period during the Second World War.

After the Second World War, Saunders’ agricultural concerns and Britain’s seeming inability to feed itself resulted in him joining the independent Rural Reconstruction Association, and he also went on to play a prominent part in the formation of Union Movement agricultural policy, summarised in the pamphlet “None Need Starve”, issued in 1952.

At the end of 1951 Saunders resigned as local Constituency Organiser of UM, though continuing to serve as Union Movement Agricultural Group Organiser during 1952, in order to devote more time to wider agricultural and local community matters, taking up office in the National Farmers Union. He eventually gave up public involvement in local activities, and formally resigning from the Union Movement in 1963. However he continued to maintain a close interest in the movement, advising and corresponding with Mosley and other National Headquarters officials, mainly on agricultural and food policy matters, until 1970. Indeed there is a file of personal correspondence between Mosley and Saunders dated 1955 to 1970.

The collection also includes appointment diaries, an autobiographical memoir titled, 'A Tiller of several soils', as well as political books and pamphlets, compiled by Saunders.