Conservative History Journal

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...