Primrose League

[lynn cates]

Sir Algernon Borthwick

Hello All. Seems that Lady Borthwick had a husband, Sir Algernon, high up in the league. Here's a short blurb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerno..._Baron_Glenesk

Nice journalist background--Paris, no less.

Cheers.
LC

[Phil Carter]

Hello Lynn,

Paris. That word keeps cropping up, I notice.

best wishes

Phil

[lynn cates]

Paris

Hello Phil. Yes, Paris is a hub of activity for some of these players.

Now you will excuse me whilst I and Kato answer the phune in my rheum.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

speech, speech

Hello All. Can't have a political club without a speech.

Isn't the Balfour chap Tom Wescott's research interest?

Cheers.
LC

[Archaic]

Hey Lynn, I was just thinking...

What would they have done if the Pansy was Disraeli's favorite flower?

"The Pansy League", I like it. Very Pythonesque.

I'm picturing them competing at the 'Twit of the Year' competition.

Cheers,
Archaic

[lynn cates]

function

Hello All. Here is a clear statement about their twofold proclivities.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Singh it

Hello All. If you have read Professor Campbell's book and know about the identity swap between Singh's father and Patrick Casey (AKA, Maurice Murphy) this will be amusing. Else, it shan't.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Farqy in WC

Hello All. Well, at least it seems that Farqy knew how to find Whitechapel.

Cutting is from the "Primrose League Gazette", June 30, 1888.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Lady Bolsover

Hello All. Lady Bolsover. Wasn't she blackmailed by Charles Le Grand who claimed he knew her previously?

Interesting that the very first PL Habitation was in the Strand.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Cavendish-Bentinck

Hello All. As it happens, the Lady Bolsover was related to the Cavendish-Bentincks. Small world.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Lynn. I'm reading up a little on the Parnell Commission and ran across the name of the Primrose League. Thanks to your thread I now know a little more about it. Has the name Soames come up? He was the Times newspaper guy who Le Grand says employed him to trail Labouchere and Pigott.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Lechmere]

I have been following this discussion about the Primrose League.
It is of interest on the presumption that the Primrose League was active in the East End and had an anti-anarchist and ant-Irish Home Rile agenda and may have been penetrated by the Okhrana in order to target the eastern European anarchists.

The Primrose League was set up in the aftermath of the 1880 General Election, with particular notice taken of the election in Birmingham. Birmingham was a Liberal stronghold, under the domination of Joseph Chamberlain who had organised a highly efficient party machine there. In the 1880 election the Conservatives made a particular effort to take Birmingham, but failed. Like many election campaigns at the time, it was conducted in a very violent manner with public meetings degenerating into mass brawls.
The Conservative campaign was spearheaded by Colonel Frederick Burnaby of the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues). Burnaby was a man of archetypal ‘military appearance’. He was a daredevil and reputedly the strongest man in the British Army. For example in 1875 he embarked on a trip from Moscow to Kiva in the far off Russian steppes – territory that had just been conquered by the Russians from semi nomadic tribes in a vicious war.
There was open hostility between Russia and Britain as due to the perceived threat of Russian expansion to India and the warm sea ports of the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.
The Russians banned foreigners from the steppes and this provoked Burnaby into making his trip. He was fiercely anti Russian due to the authoritarian and repressive nature of the Czarist Regime, with censorship, secret police, political prisoners and so forth. This was one of the main reasons why Burnaby was a Conservative. He also favoured a forward foreign policy - confronting Russian expansion, as oppose to the Gladstonian Liberals who appeased Russia.

After the election, Burnaby and others realised that for the Conservatives to compete, they must set up their own popular organisation – to get activists, money and influence.

This became the Primrose League, which was formed in late 1883. The name being taken from favourite flower of the recently deceased (1881) Conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli (the Earl of Beaconsfield). A key ally of Burnaby’s was Lord Randolph Churchill, who was selected to be Burnaby’s running mate in Birmingham at the next General Election. Churchill was a very well known figure in this period and was caricatured on many occasions in the popular press.
Churchill actually contested two seats in the following General Election, and was elected for South Paddington. He also contested Birmingham Central and this whole campaign was again characterised by widespread disorder and the Liberals won again!

Burnaby did not contest the November 1885 General Election as he had been killed in January 1885 on active service in the Sudan as part of the Gordon Relief Expedition. His death fighting the Dervishers at the Battle of Abu Klea inspired these lines:

The sand of the desert is sodden red -
Red with the wreck of a square that broke
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

Despite Burnaby’s untimely death, the Primrose League continued as the active wing of the Conservative Party and Randolph Churchill played a prominent part.
Branches were set up all over the country and they galvanised support for the Conservative Party. That is why a lot of MP’s feature as sponsors. The Conservative Party was favoured by most of the aristocracy and that is why a lot of aristocrats also feature as sponsors. The members of the British aristocracy were closely interrelated and relatively few in number.
Any list of British aristocrats in the late 19th century will show a multitude of inter family relationships.

The Primrose League was organised with local branches called Habitations, a separate ladies organisation and a complicated series of ranks and special badges, to encourage competitive membership. In the 1890s there were over a million members, who were recruited on the back of populist campaigns such as imperial expansion ,opposition to Irish Home Rule, support for the Royal Navy, support for the Royal family, and tougher law and order. The organisation however was also anti-Russian and was opposed to dictatorship and authoritarianism and police state methods. In its ranks were the wealthiest patrons from the wealthiest country in the world. It was pretty much incorruptible for that reason.
It also would have had an innate antipathy to both eastern European anarchists and representatives of Czarist Russia. There was a general fear of anarchist at that time and a public speaker could whip up an audience by raise that spectre.

[mariab]

Lynn,
Baroness Bolsover, blackmailed by Le Grand, was the widow of Arthur Cavendish Bentnick (deceased in 1877). She had 3 sons, Henry, William Augustus, and Charles, plus a stepson named William John Arthur Charles James (what an impressive bunch of names), 6th Duke of Portland (NOT the one in Oregon ;-)). This stepson of hers was NOT the same as the MP George Cavendish Bentinck, who opposed W.T. Stead's movement because he allegedly enjoyed prostitutes, as he was implicated in the Cleveland Street scandal. MP George Cavendish Bentinck was the only son of Lord Frederick Cavendish Bentinck, and there is a possibility that he was a cousin of Baroness Bolsover's stepson. So it's still too early to say if Le Grand had met Baroness Bolsover, as he claimed in his letter(s).

As for Lord Frederick Cavendish, the murder victim at Phoenix Park, it appears that he might have been related with the Cavendish Bentincks from their grandmother's side, but much earlier than the 1880s/1890s.
All of this comes courtesy of Debra Arif.

[lynn cates]

Soames

Hello Tom. Thanks very much for that name. I do indeed recall a Soames--more than once. I shall look again.

Was he located in London?

Interesting that in July/August a good deal of scuttlebutt is involved with their writing against Labouchere and editorials about "Parnellism and Crime." If what I am thinking is correct, a good deal could be explained.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

right

Hello Lechmere. Thanks. That is helpful.

Yes, the anarchists were a particular object of PL dread. Of course, by 1887/8 they were slightly more absorbed with quashing Home Rule and keeping Hibernia in the fold. They "oo" and "ah" a good deal about the revelations of "Parnellism and Crime."

Both Lord Randolph Churchill and Lord Salisbury were movers and shakers in the PL. As it turns out, so was Farquharson--the MP who started the rumour about Monty Druitt as the Ripper.

Cheers.
LC