Eleonora Tennant

Eleonora Elisa Fiaschi Tennant (19 December 1893 – 11 September 1963) was an Australian political activist best known for her involvement with far-right politics in England. She and her husband Ernest Tennant had links with Nazi Germany and she was an outspoken anti-Semite. She stood for the House of Commons on three occasions, as a Conservative in 1931 and 1935, and as an Independent Conservative in 1945. She returned to Australia in 1952 and was a Democratic Labor candidate for the Senate in 1961.

Early life Tennant was born in Sydney to Italian-Australian military surgeon Thomas Fiaschi and his first wife Catherine Ann , who was born in Ireland and was a former nun. she was sent to school in England. In 1911, while in Australia, she met Ernest Tennant, a British merchant banker who did a lot of business with Germany. They married soon afterwards, while she was still seventeen, and settled in the UK, living at the Tennant family home of Orford House. Ernest Tennant was a leading figure in the Anglo-German Fellowship, an organisation he helped to establish in 1935 which advocated closer relations between the UK and Nazi Germany.

Right-wing politics At the 1931 general election, Tennant stood as the Conservative Party candidate for Silvertown, a safe Labour Party seat in the East End of London. Her candidacy was sponsored by Lucy, Lady Houston, and came despite the opposition of Ernest. Undeterred, she set up an office in the constituency with the aim of encouraging local employers to take on more staff, and forcing the local council to deal with some housing issues.

Tennant maintained contact with many far-right activists during World War II, and met regularly with Jeffrey Hamm, during which they discussed their support for anti-Semitism. Near the end of the war, Tennant came to lead two groups, the "Never Again Association" and the "Face the Facts Association", both extreme nationalist groups. Though neither attracted a significant membership, she used them to promote various views, mostly notably her opposition to bread rationing. The initiative was largely unsuccessful however as Hamm's methods of provocative street politics and the heckling of leftist meetings were far removed from the high society circles in which the likes of Gosse and Crabtree moved.

Later years In 1948 Tennant's husband brought a divorce petition on the grounds of desertion. She contested the petition on the grounds that she "objected to living with [him] because of his Nazi sympathies". He remarried in 1950. In 1952 she moved to Winkleigh, Tasmania, where she ran a farm. She sold this on after a few years and bought a series of farms in this manner, the last being one she newly established on the Diddleum Plains. She began developing heart problems, and returned to live with family in England, dying in Kettering in 1963.