BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

33
move intended to suggest the association's extra-parliamentary
character and its willingness to recruit participants beyond the bounds
of traditional Conservative party supporters.
The name change
suggested a desire to draw from a wider social class spectrum.
By March the broadening pattern of membership had increased to
such an extent that "working men"44
Were being admitted to the League
at reduced rates.
Their recruitment had begun at the local level and
had grown to such an extent that month as to prompt the Central Office
to create a new grade of membership, "Esquires," for men who could not
pay Tribute at the existing rates of Knights and Dames.45
The move was interesting in two respects.
First because it
genuinely extended participation to a more diverse and "popular" level,
enabling the League to draw on the legacy of Tory Democracy. Second,
it was an innovation achieved at the local level, prompting a change in
policy at the Central Office.
While the London executive was generally
successful
in dictating policy from the center to the periphery,
spontaneous actions initiated from below when adopted enthusiastically
by local Habitations occasionally prompted, as is this instance, a
reformulation or alteration of established practices.
44 The term "working men" is applied here loosely as the
Conservatives used it to refer to those individuals below the middle
class proper who were receptive to party principles. The most numerous
sympathizers would appear to be artisans, farmers, and agrarian
workers, although there were many League members who came from
industrial and factory backgrounds or even more disadvantageous sectors
of society.
45 Minutes of the Grand Council of the Primrose League, 22
March 1884.