Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian wanted to see the year out with some spectacular birthday or anniversary. Nothing much seems to have happened on December 31 and the birthday of Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, hardly seems worth celebrating. So let us look to December 30, the birthday of one of the finest poets and writers, Rudyard Kipling. Happy 145th birthday, Mr Kipling. Happy New Year to all readers....

History Today enters into its 61st year with an interesting looking iss...

Tory Historian has just finished another book that might be of interest to people who are interested in conservative history and its ramifications. The Third Marquess of Londonderry and his second wife, Frances Anne Emily Vane-Tempest, une femme formidable according to all including Disraeli, spent several months in Russia in the winter of 1836-7, visiting St Petersburg and Moscow as well as a few smaller places, attending many balls, dinners...

It has been said that the 1920s and 1930s were the Golden Age of the detective story. Tory Historian has always found that rather hard to accept as all too many of those novels are either completely unreadable or utterly preposterous, such as the adventures of Colonel Gore. The same period may be said to be the Golden Age of the essay, short, long or full-volume length as H. Douglas Thomson's Masters of Mystery is. Mr Thomson also edited a collection of Mysteries in 1934, which included every well known name and some rather...

Tory Historian has been a little remiss with postings recently so an early new year resolution is in order. In the meantime a very Merry Christmas to all readers of this bl...

Tory Historian admires Daniel P. Moynihan for many reasons, not least for being the sort of Democrat that seems to be extinct now. This quotation that dates back to 1969 merely confirms that.Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good.Of course, he uses the word "liberal" in the modern American sense. A true old-fashioned liberal has a very healthy skepticism of anything to do with government,...

One can pick up very interesting and somewhat random information from detective stories. Tory Historian was re-reading Dorothy L. Sayers' novels and, indeed, reading her essays. One of the early Wimsey novels was The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, whose plot revolves round the problem of who died first, General Fentiman or his sister Lady Dorland.The General's body is discovered in the Bellona Club in the early evening of November 11. Wimsey is asked to find out when he had died but immediately discovers a number of odd...

On the whole Tory Historian would prefer not to have the picture of London's Mayor at the top of this website. The organization, the King James Bible Trust, is entirely praiseworthy and TH hopes that many readers will look at the site, bookmark it and note whatever events it organizes to promote a wider knowledge of the book that changed the Anglosphere's understanding of the world and religion. Can one really think English-language literature...

Tory Historian was fascinated by this news item about archaeological excavation at Towton in Yorkshire, the site of one of the bloodiest battles on English soil, fought between the Yorkists and Lancastrians in 1461. There are the usual arguments about the numbers killed and whether it was worse than Marsden Moor of the Civil War. But that is not the fascinating news. It would appear that archaeologists together with a metal detectorist [sic] have found bronze barrel fragments and very early lead shot. This will, one hopes, be...

I am now rounding up all possible contributions for the Conservative History Journal (with many thanks to those who have sent theirs). So, any mo...

Nobody could really call the last great Whig historian G. M. Trevelyan a Conservative almost by definition though many of his ideas would now be described as conservative with a small 'c'. Here is a somewhat hostile piece about Trevelyan and the Trevelyan family in general by John Vincent, which informs us, among other matters that the famed if outdated historian burned all his personal papers. Tory Historian recalls reading David Cannadine's biography and finding it most interesting as well as surprisingly sympathetic.Trevelyan...

And this account by Nathaniel Morton based on William Bradford's in the Wall Street Journ...

In pursuit of more detective stories Tory Historian came across Lee Jackson's Victorian mysteries, in particular A Metropolitan Murder that starts on the Metropolitan line soon after it opened in 1863, apparently only 3 years after the construction started. No particular opinion of it as yet. The style, which is mostly in the present tense is slightly irritating but the description of mid-Victorian London is fascinating. How good the plot is remains to be seen. However, Tory Historian was led to Lee Jackson's website, which...

Twenty years ago today Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister. Tory Historian is far too well behaved to launch into invectives against the people in the lady's own party (something nobody outside this country ever understood) who engineered her premature departure. Not only they but, sadly, the whole party has paid the pri...

Tory Historian is about to put that book back on the shelf but would like to quote one last paragraph, which says things that TH has also said before: so much about present-day America reminds one of Victorian Britain. Professor Himmelfarb puts it more eloquently:Having derived a good deal of its own Enlightenment from the mother country, the United States is now repaying Britain by perpetuating the spirit of her Enlightenment. We are often reminded of the theme of American "exceptionalism". America was exceptional at the time...

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh monthThey shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember th...

Tory Historian has spent some time recently reading M. V. Hughes's books about her life in Victorian London and the later one about life between the wars in Cuffley, a village just outside London that was, in that period, steadily moving towards becoming a suburb. The question that comes to one's mind immediately is why is Molly Hughes not better known? She used to be on schools' reading lists as Tory Historian can recall but, possibly,...

Tory Historian is very apologetic: a combination of a bad cold and various other commitments produced a neglect of the most important thing, this blog. This cannot happen again. For today, a quotation from Gertrude Himmelfarb's The Roads to Modernity, a telling comparison between the English and the French Enlightenments:One historian [Ronald I. Boss] has described the philosophes' belief in the social utility of religion as a "paradox", a "contradiction", a "lag in their social thought" caused by their inability to create an...

Tory Historian is mortified by neglecting to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar yesterday. Sackcloth and ashes are the order of the day. Instead, time has been spent on reading Gertrude Himmelfarb's The Roads to Modernity, which separates what she calls the three different Enlightenments: British, French and American, and restores the British one to its historic importance.The three can be characterized as Sociology of...

Tory Historian, like so many people, has been often perplexed by people blithely attributing to Burke the saying: "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" or something like it. Perplexed and annoyed, TH has decided to pursue the matter. It would appear that there is no evidence that either Burke or anyone else said that or wrote that, which makes it a non-quotation by any standard. What Burke did say in his 1770 pamphlet, Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents, was something much more apt but also...

October 14, 1066 - King Harold II is slain (possibly by an arrow through the eye) at the Battle of Hastings or Senlac H...

Tory Historian is inclined to the view that the lady who is celebrating her 85th birthday today is the greatest twentieth century Prime Minister though some might disagree. (Feel free to do so.) So, for today, here is video of one of her finest hou...

London Historian reminds all those in or around London that this Saturday there will be no fewer than four guided walks to do with London's rivers, presumably those that are now underneath roads helping to destabilize London's buildin...

Not a war to be proud of and one that might have been avoided with a little more diplomacy on all sides. The second Anglo-Boer War that went on from 1899 to 1902, established Britain's supremacy (more or less) in South Africa, eventually created the Union of South Africa, had enormous impact on domestic politics and blackened Britain's name because of the policy of concentration camps for civilians (later developed to a far higher level by several other countries) began on October 11, 1899 with a Boer offensive into Natal and...

1974 was the year of two elections, both lost by the Conservatives but only one resulting in victory for the Labour Party. In February of that year Harold Wilson had formed a minority government, the first in this country, as the BBC tells, since 1929 and called another election in October when he managed to convert it to a majority of 3. Inevitably, as time went on this, too, became a minority government but it managed to stagger on till the end of its term in 1979. This election also signalled the end of Edward Heath's leadership...

On October 11, 1982 the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's carrack-type warship was finally raised from the seas after a great deal of archaeological and salvation work. She had sunk in the Solent in 15...

Tory Historian has been reading a good deal of Dorothy L. Sayers's works, including the detective stories as well as the various essays. More on that lady and her writings at another time. On the whole, her political writings are the weakest of all but this paragraph in the wartime essay, The Gulf Stream and the Channel published in the collection Unpopular Opinions, made TH smile:All British institutions have an air of improvisation; and seem allergic to long-term planning.Indeed, what else can you expect in a country where...

Tory Historian went to the British Museum this evening as it was late opening. Unusually, the Mediaeval Galleries were open (possibly because there is no big exhibition on at the moment) though the fate of the Hinton St Mary mosaic pavement is still unknown. TH distinctly remembers seeing most of that floor laid out on the landing of the BM staircase. Then it was taken apart and the medallion with Christ's face put back. Where is the rest...

A big milestone in post-World War II restoration: on October 3, 1952 tea-rationing ended. In theory, de-rationing was to start in 1948 but had been somewhat slow. In actual fact, food rationing was not abolished till 1954, after a great deal of popular disconte...

Tory Historian is always thrilled when a previously mysterious document, particularly if it is a map, can be deciphered. The news that the 2nd Century map of Germania by Ptolemy is being deciphered by a group of scholars of various persuasion is very exciting.The map, inaccurate though it is in some detail shows that many German settlements are considerably older than thought before, that there was a great deal of interaction with the Romans...

Tory Historian rarely finds anything in the news to smile about but this is certainly one such item. The BBC and other outlets such as the New York Times reports that when cleaning a painting that was supposed to be possibly by Bruegel the Younger, the Prado restorers that it was, in fact, that rare thing a signed painting by the most talented of all Bruegels, Pieter the Elder. The Wine of St Martin's Day will now be negotiated over by...

Tory Historian, having had to read numerous British political philosophers and to discuss their fascinating and overwhelmingly important ideas, has always found it slightly odd to hear people pronounce that the British do not care for ideas - they just muddle through. Given that most of the modern world's ideas (and all of the more beneficent ones) emerged from this country to spread across the world, this seems to be particularly fatuous.It was, therefore, with some interest that TH received a link to an old essay of Friedrich...

Readers of this blog will be aware that Tory Historian is very fond of maps. Maps should accompany most history books, especially those that deal with travelling and battles. Sadly, the British Library exhibition, entitled Magnificent Maps - Power, Propaganda and Art, all words to thrill Tory Historian's heart, is coming to an end this week-end. However, there is a Curators' Blog on the subject, which TH hopes will continue beyond the exhibition, as it seems to have wonderful illustrations and descriptions of maps that did not...

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September 7, 1940, the London Blitz sta...

Tory Historian is delighted to point to a new organization that has just been set up: London Historians. The book list on the site is excellent and the plans for events sound quite exciting. Further reports will follow as more happens.There is now a blog....

Tory Historian was once again taking time off and almost missed this extraordinarily witty and touching tribute in the Economist to Bill Millin, the man who piped in the D-Day landing at Sword Beach and who died on August 17, aged 88.ANY reasonable observer might have thought Bill Millin was unarmed as he jumped off the landing ramp at Sword Beach, in Normandy, on June 6th 1944. Unlike his colleagues, the pale 21-year-old held no rifle...

Tory Historian was enthralled by the story of the marine who first served in the Anglo-Sudan war, went on to the Western Front in the First World War, retired but felt he could not live without serving his country so he spent 18 months in the Royal Irish Constabulary.During the inter-war years he was appointed skipper of a private ocean-going yacht and in 1929 undertook and led a big game hunting party in central Africa.At 63, he got involved in the Spanish Civil War, joining the Spanish non-intervention Organisation as a sea...

Here is an interesting quote from an article Noel Skelton published in the Spectator on May 3, 1924, entitled Private Property: A Unionist Ideal.It follows that the extent of the distribution of private property is the measure, on its economic side, of a civilization's stability and success. Similarly, character and a sense of responsibility are rooted in a man's possession of 'something of his own'. A democracy withoug scope for the development of economic character and responsibility, cut off from private ownership, cannot...

A delightful collection of colour photographs taken in Russia in the early twentieth century by the chemist and photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, who had made numerous innovations in photography and started a systematic photographic documentary of the Russian Empire. About half of the photographs and plates were confiscated by the authorities when Prokudin-Gorsky left the Russia in 1918 to settle eventually in France where he continued his work. The remaining half is now in the Library of Congress. Here are some more of the...

Tory Historian has, once again, been out of action and, therefore, a few dates have not been noted. August 21 was the anniversary of the birth of the last Hanoverian king, William IV and August 22 was the anniversary of the death, in battle, of the last Plantagenet King, Richard III. Tory Historian seems to have written about him several times (far too often some readers might say). Here is the link to all the postings on the subject. August...

This is actually a quotation within the book. Richard A. Gaunt in his Sir Robert Peel - The Life and Legacy quotes an obituary from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine of September 1850: The death of Sir Robert Peel was an event so sudden, so unexpected, and so distressing that it excited a universal feeling of sympathy in the British heart, and stilled for a season every voice but that of melancholy among the immense multitudes to whom his public career had made him known. It stifled, during the first paroxysm of grief, even the...

This comes from David Torrance's Noel Skelton and the Property-Owning Democracy and concerns the founding of the 1922 Committee and the death of a coalition.The Carlton Club meeting of 1922 was integral to the development of the Conservative Party as a more democratic organisation, and to a country struggling to come to terms with the realities of the post-war era. A revolt by a group of junior ministers was the first hint that something was afoot, and in October backbench Conservatives decided to overthrow their leader, Austen...

World War II ends definitively with Japanese surrender. On August 15 the Emperor broadcast to the people of Japan announcing this fact. Some Japanese soldiers and officers, shocked by the surrender and by the actual fact of the Emperor's broadcast, committed suicide. It was later established that the execution of Allied POWs continued for some time.Actual Instruments of Surrender were not signed by the Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigimetsu...

The Conservative History Group wants to publish the next issue of the Conservative History Journal at the end of November. So, here is your chance to contribute an article on any aspect of conservative history - not just the party or the politicians but other topics; not just in Britain but in other countries. The glory of being a published author awaits y...

Tory Historian has been wading into literary studies of a kind by reading a fascinating book by that well-known man of letters, John Gross, on Shylock (a review in the Independent). Among other many fascinating things even in the first third, Tory Historian found this aperçu:Between them, Antonio and Shylock represent two extreme versions of Economic Man, one benevolent, the other malign. Jekyll-Antonio embodies the fantasy that you can...

From the USS Augusta, in mid-Atlantic President Harry S Truman announced the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It was dropped from an American B-29 Superfortress, known as Enola Gray. The second picture, from DefenseImagery.mil and reprinted with their permission, shows an aerial view of the USAAF North Field on Tinian Island from which B-29 bombers flew throughout World War II. That included the two that flew to Hiroshima...

Reading David Torrance's book about Noel Skelton I came across a number of quotes from various Conservative (and, funnily enough, Labour) politicians, all in their own way exhorting the idea of "property-owning" democracy. John Buchan, who was also a long-standing friend of Skelton's, put it most succinctly in my opinion:In a 1933 speech Buchan said he "believed in a property-owning democracy. Unless a man owned a certain amount of property he could not have real freedom. The vital task before a civilized state was not to do...

Tory Historian's attention was called to a review in the Wall Street Journal of a book that will be borrowed from London Library at the first possible opportunity: Joel Mokyr's The Enlightened Economy. The reviewer, Trevor Butterworth who is the editor of STATS.org and a columnist for Forbes.com, thinks this is the tome that should be read by all those who are interested in financial and economic matters.The theme of the books is a question: why, of all European countries, many as advanced if not more so, it was Britain that...

On July 30, 1990 Ian Gow, Conservative MP, a strong opponent of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, an erstwhile close friend and colleague of Airey Neave's, a man who worked closely with the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was assassinated by a bomb planted under his car in his constituency. Direct violence entered British politics again as it had done with the assassination of Airey Neave.In the Guardian Jonathan Aitken and Edward Pearce called...

David Torrance, author of the book about Noel Skelton that so fortuitously arrived in the post the other day, has an article in the Scottish edition of The Times (channelled here by his publisher BiteBack). He writes about the hero of his book, a man who was a Unionist, Scottish and British, a Conservative and the man who saw clearly the importance of property-owning democracy, which is the exact opposite of socialist re-distribution by the state in whatever fo...

The poet, essayist, MP, irascible Catholic, Hilaire Belloc was born on July 27, 1870 in France but became a British subject in 1902. There are so many aspects to Belloc's life, some less pleasant than others that only a very long posting would do anything like justice to the man. It seems wrong on his birthday to do anything but to celebrate him as a poet but it is difficult to decide on the poems, those well-known and delightful children's...

Since the sixtieth anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War (too often forgotten by commentators) was marked by Tory Historian, it is worth pointing out that it ended on July 27, 1953 with the signing of a peace agreement at Panmunjom. It lasted three years and cost around 5 million liv...

... a very interesting looking book by David Torrance, a previous contributor to the Conservative History Journal, about Noel Skelton and property-owning democracy. Once I have read it I shall try to interview David for the Journal or the bl...

Tory Historian remembers this very well, indeed. One of the great non-events of the year, for which we may be thankful, though questions were raised at the police handling of the planned but failed second series of blasts on the London tu...

Tory Historian returns with a round-up of recent finds in the historical and archaeological world.Of greatest interest to TH is this collection of Victorian photographs of golfers playing at St Andrews.Ladies are pictured wearing enormous frocks and wielding their clubs while spectators look on.The women were playing for the Ladies' Monthly Medal in September 1884 and the clubhouse can be seen in the background.The distinctive sandy beach...

The Battle of Britain began on July 10, 1940.The day was characterised by convoy raids off North Foreland and Dover. During the night, the east coast, home counties and western Scotland were attacked. The weather was showery in the southeast and Channel, with continuous rain elsewhere.Germany was not really in a position to invade though people may be forgiven for thinking so at the time. The Battle of Britain was the first real set-back...

July 7, 2005 London - four suicide bombers blow up three underground trains and a ...

Tory Historian was intrigued to find this quotation from the Economist of May 3, 1845 on the subject of Sir Robert Peel's Bank Charter Act:It is because we feel strongly that the interference of Parliament, under the pretext of supplying prudence, and regulating the interests and responsibilities of commerce in any way, has always proved a serious failure, and a miserable substitution for that individual caution which it is so well calculated to supplant, that we feel bound to oppose such legislation generally. And particularly...

This may come a little too late for some people but I did put up the information a few days ago. The Conservative History Group will be having a meeting today. Tuesday, 29th June at 6.30pmVenue: The Grimond Room, Portcullis HouseOur speaker will be Dr Tim Bale of Sussex University, whose book The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron was published earlier this year. With Mr Cameron now in Downing Street, it is an opportune moment to consider the recent history of the Party, and we will be joined in doing so by our Chairman,...

The forgotten war, as it is known, especially in Britain, began on June 25, 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. Astonishingly enough, it was the UN that mobilized forces to support South Korea but then the USSR was temporarily exercising an empty seat policy. Undoubtedly, it would have stopped any UN action, otherwise. According to recent books on the subject of Soviet espionage in the United States, Soviet penetration of the Manhattan...

The death has been announced of Lord Walker who, as Peter Walker, held a number of important ministerial positions in both the Heath and the Thatcher governments. Tory Historian may find the notion of a "one-nation Conservative" a little odd but at times like this, all one can do is rememb...

Tory Historian has finished reading Earl Stanhope's Conversations with Wellington (mentioned here and here) and, having recently read John Charmley's biography of Princess Lieven (here and here) could not help spending some time in meditation about the Duke of Wellington's role as politician. TH's history teaching at school was far superior than that given to children these days but was a descendant of the Whig theory of history and assumed...