BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

29
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As early as January, 1884 there were indications that the
League was beginning to take hold.
The newspaper advertisements, begun
in December, encouraged an influx of members which in turn led to an
expansion of Central Office functions.
An Organizational Secretary and
Deputy Registrar were appointed.
Diplomas were being printed for
Dames.
The League issued its first Precept through the auspices of one
of its temporary recruiting officers, Sir John Montagu Burgoyne, Bt.,
working in Bedfordshire.
It encouraged prospective members to join.35
Another indication of growing vitality was the ordering in
January of seven hundred and twenty rosettes and one hundred enamel
pins for possible purchase by Knights and Dames.36
The use of
decorations to connote affiliation and service was significant. For,
in an age characterized by an ever accelerating rush for honors,37
35 Minutes of the Grand Council of the Primrose League, 19
January 1884.
36 Rosettes were to be issued free to members; enamels sold
for one shilling, full dress badges for five. Minutes of the Grand
Council of the Primrose League, 19 January 1884.
37 Macmillan, Honours for Sale, Pumphey, "The Introduction of
Industrialists into the British Peerage," and Hanham, "The Sale of
Honours in Late Victorian England," have aptly demonstrated the
accelerating demand for peerages in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century. Salisbury made known his displeasure in having to dispense
titles on several occasions. Commenting to Buckle, an editor of The
Times who came to interview him in 1885, he remarked,
You are the first person who has come to see me in the
last few days who is not wanting something at my
hands—place, or decoration, or peerage. You only want
information! Men whom I counted my friends, and whom I
should have considered far above personal self-seeking,
have been here begging, some for one thing, some for
another, till I am sick and disgusted. The experience