BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

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social
relations while chivalry reigned supreme.
Lady Randolph Churchill
and her compatriots on the LGC might
mock the titles assigned to members of the Primrose League, dubbing
Knight Harbingers "Night Refugees," criticizing freely the "gaudy
badges," and "ye ancient diplomas" printed on vellum for distribution
to members.
Nevertheless, no one doubted the seriousness of the task
before them: the recruitment of a mass electorate to serve the cause of
the Conservative party.34
The Primrose League also drew upon various forms of rituals,
many of them derived from masonic traditions dating back to the early
nineteenth century.35
Characteristically, however, they were diluted
and transformed to meet the needs of a modern, political entity. An
oath of loyalty was required of members, although this consisted
essentially of a vow to affirm the three principles of the League.
Intitiation rites were never introduced.
The most strenuous feature of
induction was the payment of national and local fees.
166-67.
34 The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill, pp. 135-37,
35 By far the most useful historical study of rituals and
their impact on modern social movements remains the final chapter of
E.J. Hobsbawm's Primitive Rebels (New York: Frederick A. Praeger,
1954), entitled "Ritual in Social Movements." Other studies which are
helpful include Hobsbawm's "Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870­
1914" The Invention of Tradition, especially pp. 267-68, 270, 283;
Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (New York:
The Free Press, 1965), pp. 22, 472, 474-75, 491, a reprint of the 1915
edition published by Macmillan Comp.; Edward Shils and Michael Young,
"The Meaning of the Coronation;" Raymond Firth, Symbols: Public and
Private (New York: Cornell University Press, 1973), pp. 328, 335-36,
354; Robert Bocock, Ritual in Industrial Society (London: George Allen
and Unwin, 1974), pp. 56, 61-62, 64-65, 73, 98-99, 102-03; and Steven
Lukes, Essays in Social Theory (London: Macmillan Press, 1977), p. 72.