BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

PREFACE
For a scholar embarking on her first sustained endeavor in
historical
research, the challenge of undertaking a detailed analysis
of the Primrose League is unmistakable.
It offers the opportunity to
address some of the central
issues in late nineteenth and twentieth
century political history. Prominent among these are the social,
political, and geographical
foundations of popular conservatism, extraparliamentary
factors responsible for the transformation of the
Conservative party to the preeminent ruling power in government, and
the role of the Marquis of Salisbury, the Prime Minister throughout
most of the years under study.
The first two themes are exemplified in
the evolution of the League while the third is the subject of a major
reassessment.
An investigation of the Primrose League also offers an
increasingly rare chance to students of modern British political
history, the absence of an existing systematic study.
I have attempted
to fill that void by providing both a qualitative and quantitative
account of the growth and development of the Primrose League.
In the course of my research I had an opportunity seldom
conferred upon a doctoral candidate, the chance to assist in the
transfer of a privately held collection of documents to a public
archive.
In this case, the papers of the Primrose League, the most
extensive collection of late nineteenth century manuscripts available
relating to the Conservative party, were conveyed from a storage
v