April 19 was for a nearly a century a key date in the Conservative Party’s calendar. It marked Primrose Day, when wreaths were laid and flowers worn in memory of Benjamin Disraeli who died on April 19, 1881. The celebrations were organised by the Primrose League, established in 1883, which became the largest voluntary mass movement in British political history with some two million members before the First World war. It paved the way for the development of the Conservative Party’s organisation throughout the country in the twentieth century, as Alistair Lexden, historian of the League, explained at a meeting of the St James’s and Knightsbridge & Belgravia Ward Committees of the Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Association on April 7.
A few copies remain of A Gift from the Churchills :The Primrose League ,1883-2004,published in 2010—and are available at £9.50 from the author at [email protected].