Primrose League
The Primrose League [ ' prɪmrəʊz li: g] (English Primelliga ) was established in 1883 is a conservative club in the UK, the party became an important electoral organization of the British Conservatives. The Association was founded by the conservative politician Randolph Churchill and named after the favorite flower of former Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. The Primrose League was politically active until the mid- 1990s and was disbanded in 2004.
In the 1880s, the direct appeal to the public and to mobilize the base, especially in election campaigns had become common in the United Kingdom. The gain in legitimacy due to a broad agreement of the staff but was also used for intra-party clashes in the Conservative Party, the opposition to the incumbent Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone made at that time by the Liberal Party. To increase the influence of the party base opposite the parliamentary leadership under Lord Salisbury and to attract new conservative voters over social boundaries for the party, founded Randolph Churchill and later prime minister Arthur James Balfour 1883 Primrose League. The association got its name from the favorite flower of two years earlier late Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, the Primrose Day was held annually in his honor.
Already Benjamin Disraeli had tried to win the working class for the Conservative Party. Despite all efforts were working in conservative circles the exception. After the death of Disraeli in 1881 a so-called Fourth Party was formed in the younger Tories under the leadership of Churchill and Balfour, which give greater influence within the Conservative party, but wanted to mobilize the lower social classes. Founded to Primrose League, to secure their independence, the party was not officially connected, spread quickly throughout the country and thus became the political mass organization. 1886 was the number of members already 200,000 in 1891 already a million and 1.7 million in 1908. A particularly large following found the association in rural areas.
The Primrose League won their followers by the supposed pre- Lower class to the middle class and of both to the upper class. These served the organization of celebrations like the Primrose Day where honor ranks and insignia could be put on display in a ceremonial context, but also the unity of the nation was summoned. The Primrose League, therefore, became the principal instrument of the Conservative election campaign in the pre-war period, especially since the campaign spending were drastically curtailed by new election laws and had to be resorted to volunteers. Here, the association was able to replace the missing party machinery by striking and successful.