BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

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day decisions to its Executive Committee, a subset of the Council's
most active members.6
Increasingly, as time progressed, the office
assumed a more professional character, hiring growing numbers of
organizers and staff workers to maintain its expanding operations. In
March, 1885 Claude Hay, the League's Organizing Secretary, resigned to
assume the role of "Consulting Organizer," an advisory post for which
he received the fairly modest annual stipend of fifty guineas. While
his tenure as Secretary had been principally voluntary, his successor,
T.B. Cusack-Smith, began his term with a salary set at £120 per year.
Like many of the League's "political" workers, Cusack-Smith had
initially served for only a token allowance before assuming
"professional" status.
An Assistant Deputy Registrar was also hired at
an annual salary of one hundred pounds while a clerk's wages were
increased to seventy-five pounds.?
Grand Council committees increased in accordance with the
expanding base and enhanced Central Office functions. In May, 1885
the Executive Committee was replaced by three distinct organs: General
Purposes, Finance, and Consultative, all of which regularly reported to
the Council as a whole.
The Consultative Committee was to focus on
speakers, meetings, and local issues.
A Dames Conference Committee was
formed in June in order to promote close, cooperative relations between
Grand Council and the LGC. 8
6 Minutes of the Grand Council of the Primrose League, 21
January 1885.
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8
Ibid, 11 March 1885; 18 February 1885.
Ibid, 13 May 1885; 28 May 1885; 24 June 1885.