Notes INTRODUCTION 1 Olive Banks, Faces of Feminism (Oxford, 1981). 2 Martin Pugh has been instrumental in detailing the relationship between the right and feminism, notably in The Tories and the People (Oxford, 1985). 3 Christabel Pankhurst was an approved candidate of the Uoyd George Liberal-Conservative coalition in 1918. Even stranger, perhaps, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst was a Conservative candidate at the time of her death. It would not be difficult to qualify each woman - at least in her later life - as Conservative. 4 Secret report on policy for women by Douglas?, 24.9.69, CRD 3/38/4, Conservative Party Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford (henceforth cited as CPP). 1 WOMEN IN THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND 1 Quoted in Brian Harrison, Separate Spheres: The Opposition to Women's Suffrage in Britain (London, 1978), 81. 2 For more on Mary Anne Disraeli see Elizabeth Lee, Wives of the Prime Ministers (London, 1918). 3 The Primrose League will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 2. 4 For Lady Salisbury's correspondence with Disraeli see the Disraeli Papers, 93/2, Bodleian Library, Oxford (henceforth cited as BW). 5 On being asked by another woman if the Primrose League was not vulgar, Lady Salisbury replied: 'Vulgar? Of course it is. That is why we've got on so well.' In Mrs George Cornwallis-West (ed.), The Remi­ niscences of Lady Randolph Churchill (Bath, 1908, repub., 1973), 100. 6 For more on this see Patrick Joyce, 'Popular Toryism in Lancashire 186a-1890' (DPhil, Oxford, 1975). 7 Randolph Churchill, Lord Derby, 'King of Lancashire' (London, 1959), 65-6. 8 J. C. C. Davidson to Miss Law, 6.12.1916 in Robert Rhodes James, Memoirs of a Conservative: J. C. C. Davidson's Memoirs and Papers 1910-37 (London, 1969), 46. 9 For more on Mary Derby see Esther Shkolnik, Leading Ladies: A Study of Eight Late Victorian and Edwardian Political Wives (London, 1987). 10 Quoted in Winifred, Lady Burghclere,A Great Man's Friendship: Letters of the Duke of Wellington to Mary Marchioness of Salisbury 1850-1852 (London, 1927), 36. 11 Richard Shannon, The Age of Disraeli (London, 1992), 169. 207 208 Notes 12 Salisbury to Lady Salisbury, 15.2.1874 in Lady Gwendolyn Cecil, Life of Robert Marquess of Salisbury, Vol. 2 (London, 1921), 46-7. 13 Disraeli to Salisbury, 16.2.1874 in Cecil, Vol. 2, 48. 14 Mary Salisbury to Disraeli, 16.1.1865, Disraeli Papers, 113/4, BLO. 15 See Mary Salisbury to Disraeli, 29.6.1876 and 7.9.1876 in Disraeli Papers, 113/4, BLO. 16 A. J.P. Thylor called Derby 'the most isolationist foreign secretary that Great Britain has ever known' in The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918 (London, 1954), 233. 17 For more on this see Robert Blake, Disraeli (London, 1967), 623 ff. and Shkolnik, 222-3. 18 See Blake, 634-5. 19 Mary Derby to Disraeli, 6.10.1878 in Disraeli Papers, 113/4. 20 See, for example, Gladstone to Lady Derby, 17.5.1882 on Derby's refusal to take office, in H. C. G. Matthew (ed.), The Gladstone Diaries, Vol. X (Oxford, 1990), 263-4. 21 Memorandum by Queen Victoria, 20.2.1874 in G. E. Buckle (ed.), The Letters of Queen Vzctoria, Vol. 2, 1870-1898 (London, 1926), 822. 22 Quoted in Blake, 546. 23 Disraeli to Victoria, 17.4.1874, in Buckle, Vol. 2, 333-4. 24 Blake, 546. 25 Victoria to Disraeli, 11.7.1874 in Buckle, Vol. 2, 341-2. 26 Victoria to Disraeli, 26.1.1875 in Buckle, Vol. 2, 373. 27 Disraeli to Victoria, 26.1.1875 in Buckle, Vol. 2, 373-4. Disraeli event­ ually gave way to Victoria on this issue, in spite of the fact that he knew it would cause unfavourable criticism. He did, however, have his price and immediately afterwards asked Victoria to agree to his friend, Sydney Thmer, for a future appointment. 28 Victoria to the Earl of Beaconsfield (Disraeli), 28.9.1876 in Buckle, Vol. 2, 480. 29 Quoted in Stanley Weintraub, Vzctoria (London, 1987), 414. 30 I have followed here Richard Shannon, The Age of Salisbury (London, 1996), 91. 31 Victoria to Salisbury, 31.10.1884 in Buckle, Vol. 3, 563. 32 For more on this see H. C. G. Matthew, Gladstone, 1875-1898 (Oxford, 1995), 149. 33 Victoria to Salisbury, 3.12.1885 in Buckle, Vol. 3, 706-7. 34 Although as Matthew has noted in Gladstone, 1875-1898, 260, the reverse was not true. The Conservative opposition did not write to her on such questions. This clearly shows that while they differed in form from the Liberals, they did not differ in content. 35 We shall hear more about her activities in Chapter 2. 36 H. Montgomery Hyde, The Londonderrys (London, 1979), 94-5. 37 Martin Pugh, The Tories and the People (Oxford, 1985), 57. 38 Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister (London, 1955), 88 39 Hyde, 151-2. 40 Ibid., 159. 41 There is no doubt though that Lord Londonderry's obvious limits were also responsible for his lack of advancement. The correspondence Notes 209 between Davidson and Lady Londonderry contained in the Davidson Papers, 188, House of Lords Record Office, London gives a good idea of the tense relationship between the party chairman and the London­ derrys. A letter written by Lady Londonderry on 11.12.29, is quite inter­ esting. Although, in the opinion of this author, Davidson's letter was perfectly polite, Lady Londonderry thought otherwise: 'I have received your letter of this morning, and it is exactly the kind of letter I expected from you. Ifyou do not realise yourself how rude the whole thing is, it only confirms in my mind how hopeless the management of our Central Office is. If you treat me in this very off hand fashion, I hardly like to contem­ plate what occurs elsewhere.' She goes on to insist that: 'Considering that it is I who organised the ball which produced all the money for the Anti­ Socialist campaign in the north, and it is to my husband that you owe everything in these quarters, the only time there has been a failure was at the last election, when the Central Office ran the campaign and they lost nearly every seat. I do not accuse the Central Office naturally of any intentional discourtesy, but of gross ignorance in the management of affairs of this sort.' Lady Londonderry apparently thought that Davidson and Central Office were not showing her enough deference. 42 Marquess of Londonderry, Ourselves and Germany (London, 1938). 43 Marchioness of Londonderry, Retrospect (London, 1938), 127-8. It was Lady Londonderry who removed her hostess's name and replaced it by a blank. 2 Tiffi PRIMROSE LEAGUE 1 Quoted in Michael Bentley, Politics without Democracy (London, 1984), 267. 2 For more on Churchill see R. F. Foster's biography, Lord Randolph Churchill (London, 1981). 3 See Janet Robb, The Primrose League, 1883-1906 (New York, 1942), 33. Strangely enough, Lady Salisbury had come to the same conclusion as Churchill: 'We must have caucuses' she wrote in 1880. Quoted in Shannon, The Age of Disraeli, 330. 4 See Lady Dorothy Nevill, The Reminiscences of Lady Dorothy Nevill (London, 1906). 5 Martin Pugh, The Tories and the People (Oxford, 1985), 12-13. Through­ out this account of the Primrose League, I have depended heavily on Pugh. 6 Mrs George Cornwallis-West (ed.), The Reminiscences of Lady Ran­ dolph Churchill (Bath, 1908, repub. 1973), 98. Note that membership was open to Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, which in and of itself was revolutionary, particularly for a Conservative organization. The Church of England, after all, was often said to be the Thry Party at prayer. The recruitment of non-Anglicans would be one of the League's greatest successes. 7 See page 8. 210 Notes 8 Quoted in Martin Pugh, The Making of Modem British Politics 1867- 1939 (Oxford, 1982, 2nd ed. 1992), 55. 9 Pugh, The Tories and the People, 144. 10 Richard Shannon, The Age of Salisbury (London: 1995), 114. Martin Pugh in The Making of British Politics, 55, says that the League claimed that nine-tenths of its membership was working class. 11 Pugh, The Tories and the People, 123. 12 Minutes for 15.12.1883, in MSS.PL.1, Primrose League Papers, BLO (henceforth cited as PLP). 13 Jennie Churchill, preface to 'The Primrose League: How Ladies Can Help It' (London, 1885). 14 Cornwallis-West, 124. 15 Ibid., 125 16 Cited in Martin Pugh, The Tories and the People, 48. 17 Robb, 49. 18 Pugh, The Tories and the People, 49 19 Ibid., 50. 20 Cornwallis-West, 98. See also the meeting of 2 March 1885 when the Ladies Grand Council was officially constituted in MSS.PL.10/1, PLP. 21 Meeting of 6.6.1885 in MSS.PL.l0/1, PLP. 22 The Morning Post, 22.2.1886. 23 Report on the annual meeting of the LGC in The Morning Post, 14.5.1892. 24 'Report of the Executive Committee of the LGC', May 1887 in MSS.PL/11, PLP. 25 The Morning Post, 22.2.1886. 26 Cornwallis-West, 128-9. 27 Quoted in Pugh, The Tories and the People, 53. 28 'Report of the Executive Committee of the LGC', May 1887 in MSS.PL/11, PLP. 29 Primrose League Gazette, 19.11.1897. 30 Report on a meeting of the LGC in The Morning Post, 26.5.1887. 31 Primrose League Gazette, 19.11.1887. 32 Lady Montagu, 'Why Should Women Care for Politics?', paper read at the annual meeting of the LGC, 1.5.1888, MSS.PL/11, PLP.