BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

67
League.
Consequently in Janyary, 1887 the Council began tentatively to
discuss steps that could be taken toward creating a newspaper under the
supervision of the Council.
Pursuing this course necessarily meant
rejecting options to improve The Primrose Record or to work through
existing papers.
In May, the executive agreed to form a committee to
consider proposals for implementing the paper, and plans were made to
acquire the registered trade name of The Primrose Record.
On the first
of October, the initial weekly issue was published at one pence per
issue.35
The enterprise was not without its opponents, the most notable
of whom was Ashmead Bartlett, Brooklyn, New York born Conservative M.P.
The unstinting attacks on Gladstonian foreign policy that had begun
during the Bulgarian crisis of 1877-78 and his outspoken support for
British imperialism helped earn him a reputation as one of the leading
platform speakers of his day.
As Conservative representative to the
Ecclesall Division in Sheffield from 1885 until his death in 1902 and
as Chairman of the National Union between 1886 and 1888, he proved a
staunch supporter of the Salisbury government and its policy of highly
centralized authority.36
Undoubtedly his greatest contribution to the party was the
establishment of his national penny weekly newspaper, England, in March
of 1880.
It was the first Conservative weekly of its kind and served
35
Ibid., 7 January 1887; 20 January 1887; 16 May 1887; 16
June 1887; 30 August 1887. The Primrose League Gazette, 1 October
1887, p. 1.
36 Dictionary of National Biography, 1901-1911 supplement, pp.
105-06.