BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

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caused many to regard his achievement as the Tory counterpart to
Chamberlain's Birmingham caucus.50
During the 1890's, A.T. Salvidge assumed control over the
Conservative party machinery through his management of the largest
working class Tory organization in town, the Liverpool Working Men's
Conservative Association.
By 1894 it numbered between five and six
thousand members.
The size and influence of the association in
Liverpool, the largest in all of Britain, continued to expand until the
early 1900's when it numbered about eight thousand members.51
In the
face of the strength of urban "Orange" styled Conservative working
class movements, the Primrose League proved no match.
The result was a
small Primrose organization of 8 Habitations and 1,493 members in 1888.
Based on the 1891 census, this represented .2 percent of the city's
517,980 inhabitants. 52
In Manchester the League fared slightly worse with seven
Habitations and 1,071 members (.2 percent).
Sal ford which bordered on
Manchester and contained a mixed suburban/urban community of less than
one third Manchester's size, nevertheless, obtained a higher Primrose
membership, 1,237 or 1 percent of its 1891 population.53
50 p.j. Waller, Democracy and Sectarianism, (Liverpool:
Liverpool University Press, 1981), pp. 46, 48-49, 60, 77, 92-94, 96,
134, 166.
51
Ibid., pp. 93, 123, 142.
52 The Habitation figures for Liverpool were obtained from the
1888 Roll of Habitations. The 1891 census provided population figures
for the town of Liverpool. Great Britain, Parliament, Parliament
Papers, "Population," 1881 and 1891 Censuses England and Wales, vol.
20, p. 12. Irish University Press, Series Reprint, 1970.
53 The number of Habitations in Manchester and Sal ford was
obtained from the 1888 Roll of Habitations. The population figures for