David Coates is a freelance writer with a PhD in Intellectual History.
Our columnist Dr Daniel Pitt reminded readers of the Primrose League earlier this month, today ahead of the anniversary of Disreali’s death on the 19th April David Coates expands on why it was so important in Conservative history
One of the most remarkable features of late-Victorian politics was the dominance of the Conservative Party. Prior to 1867, most adherents of Conservatism had been overtly hostile to any extension of the franchise. It was widely assumed, by both left and right, that conservatism was an antiquated dogma, destined to be swept aside by the advance of democracy. From the Great Reform Act of 1832 onward the Conservatives secured a Parliamentary majority only once, in 1841, only for this majority to disappear in the Corn Law schism of 1846. From that point, although a series of temporary minority governments had been formed under Lord Derby, the Tory Party appeared condemned to the electoral wilderness.
It was Benjamin Disraeli who first recognised that the mass of the population could become more effective defenders of the traditional institutions of the country than either the aristocratic Whigs or the middle-class industrialists. Through the Second Reform Act of 1867, Disraeli extended the franchise to significant portions of the urban working class, a process equalised with the inclusion of the agricultural labourer by both parties’ consent in 1884. It was therefore appropriate that the institution which most benefitted from the emergence of democracy was one founded in Disraeli’s honour: the Primrose League.
The brainchild of Lord Randolph Churchill and Henry Drummond Wolff, the Primrose League was formed in 1883, two years after Disraeli’s death. Its iconography derived from the widely held belief that the primrose was his favourite flower: an uncertain claim, but one endorsed by Queen Victoria, who sent a wreath of primroses to his funeral.
Initially intended as a small movement of political actors, the League rapidly expanded into a mass movement. While full membership required an annual subscription of one guinea, a cheaper associate membership was also introduced; in practice, the distinction between the two quickly became negligible.
What, precisely, was the Primrose League?
Technically it was not formally associated with the Conservative Party. This was important. The Corrupt Practices Act of 1883 had imposed stringent limits on electoral expenditure, curtailing the long-standing practice of remunerating workers during elections. In this new environment voluntary activists became indispensable, and this the League supplied.
The Primrose League, nevertheless, was an explicitly political organisation. Its aims were set out by the declaration all members were obliged to sign: “I declare on my honour and faith that I will devote my best ability to the maintenance of religion, of the estates of the realm, and of the imperial ascendancy of the British Empire; and that, consistently with my allegiance to the sovereign of these realms, I will promote with discretion and fidelity the above objects, being those of the Primrose League.” With the motto imperium et libertas the League explicitly associated itself with the height of popular enthusiasm for British imperialism.
Yet between elections, the League operated as much as a social club as a political one. Local branches were more likely to hold fêtes than political rallies. Typically hosted in the gardens of a party grandee, these events combined political evangelisation with overt entertainment. Magic lanterns, phonograph demonstrations, waxworks, juggling and conjuring acts, singing and dancing; these formed the core elements of a Primrose League gathering. One description in the Primrose League Gazette in 1890 records a programme which “included an entertainment by Professor Golding, a ventriloquist, an illusionist, and a mimic, who was assisted by Madame Stevenson, pianist and vocalist from the London Concerts. The professor’s sketches, sleight of hand tricks, and mimicry were fairly good; and Madame Stevenson’s songs and solos evoked warm applause.” During the Boer War frequent readings would be given of ‘Soldiers of the Queen’, ‘The Bold Menelaus’, and ‘The Absent-Minded Beggar’ – followed by a collection for war charities.
In response to the accusation that the League was vulgar, Lady Salisbury replied “of course it is. That is why we have got on so well.” Part of its appeal lay in the self-aware faux-mediaevalism it revelled in. Local chapters were called ‘habitations’; full members were ‘Knights’ or ‘Dames’, with children designated ‘Buds’. Ascending up the scale, a ‘Knight Harbinger’ might become a ‘Knight Companion’, and the ruling body – the Grand Council – could reward members with honours and decorations – a Jubilee Grand Star, introduced in 1887, proved the most popular. Knights, Dames, Priors, Precepts, Masters, Chancellors, and Grand Chancellors abounded, and when in 1884 Lord Salisbury agreed to become patron of the League he wrote back to Drummond Wolff: “But I suppose we shall have no common-place name. What do you say to Vavasours?” (The League opted instead for Grand Master). Primrose badges were commonplace, being particularly encouraged at election time, and even developed into more ostentatious regalia such as watch chains.
Despite the accusations that it was little more than vulgar entertainment, the League had an evangelistic quality. It operated circulating libraries in villages, supplying works by Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Marryat, and Florence Montgomery alongside more overtly political literature. One library in Buckinghamshire was reported to contain “books on the Queen, lives of statesmen, Ireland and how people live there, allotments, books of Parish law, a very amusing pamphlet, the Irish Green Book, and political leaflets.” Lectures were provided, with visiting speakers regaling their audience of their travels around the empire, or on Egyptian antiquities, or on the dangers of socialism.
The League’s growth was phenomenal.
Disraeli’s belief in his countrymen’s innate conservatism proved correct. Benefitting from the huge upsurge in political engagement following the Home Rule crisis of 1886, the League grew from 11,000 members in 1885 to a quarter of a million in 1886, and half a million in 1887. By 1891, membership had surpassed one million, with more paid-up members than the trade union movement. The success of the League explains, in part, the success of Conservatism during this time. Whereas the restricted franchise had long consigned the Conservatives to near-permanent minority status, the extension of the vote enabled them to draw upon what contemporaries perceived as the broadly conservative instincts of the electorate. During sixty years, from 1886 until 1945, the conservatives secured more votes than either the Liberal Party or the Labour Party at every general election, with the sole exception of 1906.
‘Tory Democracy’ had been dismissed in the 1870s as a contradiction in terms. Yet the reality of a democratic Britain demonstrated that Conservatism was better defended by the ordinary voter than it had ever been under a restricted franchise. Shortly after the League’s launch, Lord Randolph urged his party to “trust the people” as the guardians of the constitution. “To rally the people round the Throne; to unite the Throne with the people; a loyal Throne and a patriotic people; that is our policy and that is our faith”. In the Primrose League, that ambition found its most popular and effective expression.
David Coates is a freelance writer with a PhD in Intellectual History.
Our columnist Dr Daniel Pitt reminded readers of the Primrose League earlier this month, today ahead of the anniversary of Disreali’s death on the 19th April David Coates expands on why it was so important in Conservative history
One of the most remarkable features of late-Victorian politics was the dominance of the Conservative Party. Prior to 1867, most adherents of Conservatism had been overtly hostile to any extension of the franchise. It was widely assumed, by both left and right, that conservatism was an antiquated dogma, destined to be swept aside by the advance of democracy. From the Great Reform Act of 1832 onward the Conservatives secured a Parliamentary majority only once, in 1841, only for this majority to disappear in the Corn Law schism of 1846. From that point, although a series of temporary minority governments had been formed under Lord Derby, the Tory Party appeared condemned to the electoral wilderness.
It was Benjamin Disraeli who first recognised that the mass of the population could become more effective defenders of the traditional institutions of the country than either the aristocratic Whigs or the middle-class industrialists. Through the Second Reform Act of 1867, Disraeli extended the franchise to significant portions of the urban working class, a process equalised with the inclusion of the agricultural labourer by both parties’ consent in 1884. It was therefore appropriate that the institution which most benefitted from the emergence of democracy was one founded in Disraeli’s honour: the Primrose League.
The brainchild of Lord Randolph Churchill and Henry Drummond Wolff, the Primrose League was formed in 1883, two years after Disraeli’s death. Its iconography derived from the widely held belief that the primrose was his favourite flower: an uncertain claim, but one endorsed by Queen Victoria, who sent a wreath of primroses to his funeral.
Initially intended as a small movement of political actors, the League rapidly expanded into a mass movement. While full membership required an annual subscription of one guinea, a cheaper associate membership was also introduced; in practice, the distinction between the two quickly became negligible.
What, precisely, was the Primrose League?
Technically it was not formally associated with the Conservative Party. This was important. The Corrupt Practices Act of 1883 had imposed stringent limits on electoral expenditure, curtailing the long-standing practice of remunerating workers during elections. In this new environment voluntary activists became indispensable, and this the League supplied.
The Primrose League, nevertheless, was an explicitly political organisation. Its aims were set out by the declaration all members were obliged to sign: “I declare on my honour and faith that I will devote my best ability to the maintenance of religion, of the estates of the realm, and of the imperial ascendancy of the British Empire; and that, consistently with my allegiance to the sovereign of these realms, I will promote with discretion and fidelity the above objects, being those of the Primrose League.” With the motto imperium et libertas the League explicitly associated itself with the height of popular enthusiasm for British imperialism.
Yet between elections, the League operated as much as a social club as a political one. Local branches were more likely to hold fêtes than political rallies. Typically hosted in the gardens of a party grandee, these events combined political evangelisation with overt entertainment. Magic lanterns, phonograph demonstrations, waxworks, juggling and conjuring acts, singing and dancing; these formed the core elements of a Primrose League gathering. One description in the Primrose League Gazette in 1890 records a programme which “included an entertainment by Professor Golding, a ventriloquist, an illusionist, and a mimic, who was assisted by Madame Stevenson, pianist and vocalist from the London Concerts. The professor’s sketches, sleight of hand tricks, and mimicry were fairly good; and Madame Stevenson’s songs and solos evoked warm applause.” During the Boer War frequent readings would be given of ‘Soldiers of the Queen’, ‘The Bold Menelaus’, and ‘The Absent-Minded Beggar’ – followed by a collection for war charities.
In response to the accusation that the League was vulgar, Lady Salisbury replied “of course it is. That is why we have got on so well.” Part of its appeal lay in the self-aware faux-mediaevalism it revelled in. Local chapters were called ‘habitations’; full members were ‘Knights’ or ‘Dames’, with children designated ‘Buds’. Ascending up the scale, a ‘Knight Harbinger’ might become a ‘Knight Companion’, and the ruling body – the Grand Council – could reward members with honours and decorations – a Jubilee Grand Star, introduced in 1887, proved the most popular. Knights, Dames, Priors, Precepts, Masters, Chancellors, and Grand Chancellors abounded, and when in 1884 Lord Salisbury agreed to become patron of the League he wrote back to Drummond Wolff: “But I suppose we shall have no common-place name. What do you say to Vavasours?” (The League opted instead for Grand Master). Primrose badges were commonplace, being particularly encouraged at election time, and even developed into more ostentatious regalia such as watch chains.
Despite the accusations that it was little more than vulgar entertainment, the League had an evangelistic quality. It operated circulating libraries in villages, supplying works by Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Marryat, and Florence Montgomery alongside more overtly political literature. One library in Buckinghamshire was reported to contain “books on the Queen, lives of statesmen, Ireland and how people live there, allotments, books of Parish law, a very amusing pamphlet, the Irish Green Book, and political leaflets.” Lectures were provided, with visiting speakers regaling their audience of their travels around the empire, or on Egyptian antiquities, or on the dangers of socialism.
The League’s growth was phenomenal.
Disraeli’s belief in his countrymen’s innate conservatism proved correct. Benefitting from the huge upsurge in political engagement following the Home Rule crisis of 1886, the League grew from 11,000 members in 1885 to a quarter of a million in 1886, and half a million in 1887. By 1891, membership had surpassed one million, with more paid-up members than the trade union movement. The success of the League explains, in part, the success of Conservatism during this time. Whereas the restricted franchise had long consigned the Conservatives to near-permanent minority status, the extension of the vote enabled them to draw upon what contemporaries perceived as the broadly conservative instincts of the electorate. During sixty years, from 1886 until 1945, the conservatives secured more votes than either the Liberal Party or the Labour Party at every general election, with the sole exception of 1906.
‘Tory Democracy’ had been dismissed in the 1870s as a contradiction in terms. Yet the reality of a democratic Britain demonstrated that Conservatism was better defended by the ordinary voter than it had ever been under a restricted franchise. Shortly after the League’s launch, Lord Randolph urged his party to “trust the people” as the guardians of the constitution. “To rally the people round the Throne; to unite the Throne with the people; a loyal Throne and a patriotic people; that is our policy and that is our faith”. In the Primrose League, that ambition found its most popular and effective expression.