Conservative History Journal

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Tory Historian happens to be what is vulgarly described as a sucker for newsreels of the past. What a joy it is, therefore, to find two videos on the History Today blog, one of people celebrating in the streets in 1918 on hearing that the war is finally over and the other is a longish piece of various dignitaries arriving for the Versailles Conference. There is even a sequence of the documents being signed. One wonders where the Pathé News cameraman is standing as the pictures always seem to be above and behind everybody el...

Or PMQs as they are known not so affectionately. Tory Historian's Blog mentioned the fiftieth anniversary of this tradition before. Nevertheless, a section on the Parliamentary website seemed like a good opportunity to revive the subject. There are many interesting links in the piece, but it is somewhat unfortunate that it is so badly written and edited. There is, for example a reference to a Parliamentary Breifing Note. Really, that rule ought to be known by people who work in the House of Commons. And what does the first...

In Federalist 51, James Madison (or it might have been Alexander Hamilton) wrote:‎If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.Tory Historian has always though that it is the practical and rational attitude...

Jeremy Black, a conservative historian who is probably a member of the Conservative Party as well, writes in History Today about the grievance industry.Grievances are a characteristic of post-Cold War history, as various ‘liberated’ peoples have adopted historical claims in the service of their political goals. The end of the Cold War discredited Marxism as an official creed and lessened its influence as a basis for analysis, resulting in a major shift away from the understanding of society linked at an international level to...

Tory Historian finds a great deal of C. S. Lewis's writing entertaining and instructive. A copy of Mere Christianity, the published version of Lewis's extremely successful wartime broadcasts on religion and morality has produced many gems.Lewis says that some people have suggested to him that moral judgement that we all, according to him, have is, perhaps, just an instinct like other instincts. Not so, replies he. Instincts are like the...

News comes of two incredibly principled poets, who, one assumes, fight like anything for their various fees and royalties, withdrawing from the T. S. Eliot poetry prize, because ... oh fie ... it is now sponsored by nvestment management firm Aurum Funds. Oh, oh, oh. Smelling salts someone, please.The Poetry Book Society negotiated the three-year sponsorship deal with Aurum earlier this year. The deal followed the withdrawal of its Arts Council funding – a move protested by over 100 poets including Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage.Kinsella...

USS West Virginia:USS Shaw:USS Arizona:Pictures of Pearl Harbor devastation, courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Comm...

Tory Historian has mentioned before (here and here, for instance) that detective stories are the most conservative of literary genres. And here is an article I wrote on it last week for Taki's Magazine.Consider what happens in a detective story, even a modern one that purports to have a leftward (or “enlightened”) leaning: A crime, probably murder, is committed, possibly followed by similar crimes. The world is turned upside-down as a result. Together with the detective, we cannot rest until the perpetrators are discovered and...

Have not yet read Robin Harris's The Conservatives - A History. In the meantime here is John O'Sullivan's excellent review that makes one want to rush out and get the book immediate...

November 28 is a double anniversary. In 1919 the first woman MP actually to take up her seat in the House of Commons was elected. Nancy Astor contested the seat of Plymouth South after her husband had succeeded to the title and went up to the House of Lords. She beat the Liberal candidate, Isaac Foot and, as the left-wing Spartacus Educational reminds us, her victory annoyed many professed feminists as she was definitely not one of them and a Conservative to boot. Also an American but she had made her home in Britain. Time went...

There have been previous postings about Thanksgiving and its significance both for the United States and the Anglosphere in general. (here, here and here)This time Tory Historian brings to the notice of all the First Thanksgiving Proclamation - June 20. 1676. This was not, as it happens, the first celebration of Thanksgiving, which took place in 1621, to celebrate a bountiful harvest. Interestingly, it was not till 1942 that the exact timing...

Another topic that needs to be covered at length on this site (and if any reader wants to pitch in with a few paragraphs, these will be much appreciated). To start with, here are Sir David Cannadine's comments as his new book, The Right Kind of History, is published. It is a history of history teaching in this country and a review copy is on its way to me. So I shall be able to write about the book itself. In the meantime, what has Sir David to say about the present and the future of history teaching in British schools?According...

As it happens there were two events of some importance on that day, both deaths, though the immediate reporting for many days, weeks, months and, it sometimes feels, even years, has concentrated on one: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This blog refuses to go into any conspiracy theories, especially as most of them have been disproved by recent re-examination of the evidence, and would merely like to point out that the way...

Tory Historian is a great supporter of the London Library, which is described by Wikipedia, probably accurately, as "the world's largest independent lending library, and the UK's leading literary institution".Founded in 1841 by various people, but most notably Thomas Carlyle who was dissatisfied (as he so frequently was) with the British Library and did not, it is said, have enough books about the French Revolution, it has been at 14 St...

And why not? Pubs, in their many manifestations (yes, inns and public houses have changed over the centuries), are an intrinsic part of British history, different in different parts of the country. London Historians are organizing a second History in the Pub event [scroll down to fourth item] on November 29, between 7 and 9 at The Bell, 50 Middlesex Street, Spitalfields. Here is an account of the first, highly successful event....

The Duke of Wellington, one of Tory Historian's heroes was a considerably more important politician (as well as an overwhelmingly important military commander) than TH had been led to believe at school. He was also a man who was admired unstintingly by all except the Radicals (and even they inclined to some admiration).Sadly, none of that is true and Tory Historian needs to rethink everything read in those textbooks and heard in the lessons....

A massive 10 hour raid by the Luftwaffe left Coventry devastated on November 15, 19...

Viscount Castlereagh has never been given his full due by his own countrymen, argues Professor Bew in this article. There is, he says, an attempt to make him sound entirely relevant to the modern age but that is wrong, too.The truth is that Castlereagh can be understood only as a product of the time in which he operated, rather than as a bearer of any timeless insights. Nonetheless, as his descendant, the Marchioness of Londonderry, argued...

Tory Historian was delighted to read this item in the Daily Telegraph a few days ago.RJ Balson and Sons, a butchers based in Bridport, Dorset, boasts an astonishing history that is almost 500 years old.Experts have traced the businesses roots back through 25 generations to when founder John Balson opened a stall in the town's market on South Street in 1535.Since then dozens of family members have worked as butchers in the market town, passing their skills down the generations.And 476 years later, the shop remains a thriving...

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

The tanks came back. Budapest, November 4, 1...

I am planning to have a series of articles about detective fiction on this site as it is, in my opinion, the most conservative of all genres, a proposition that I shall argue at a later date. As ever, this is also an appeal to readers: if there is anybody out there who is thinking of writing anything about a detective story or thriller writer or about the genre or any part of it in general, do please send it to me and I shall put it up...

Tucked away in one of the rooms on the second floor of the National Portrait Gallery there is a small exhibition. It takes up no more than half a not very large room and consists of four portraits, four engravings and another, separate engraving of the artist, William Dobson, who was born in 1611 and died in 1646, soon after the collapse of the Royalist cause and his return to London.He had stayed with the King in Oxford as long as he could,...

Tory Historian was thrilled to read yesterday in the Evening Standard that a previously unknown portrait by Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez has been found among various paintings by a little known British artist, Matthew Shepperson, whose own work, about to be auctioned is unlikely to bring in more than a few hundred pounds apiece. The BBC has the story as well:artPortrait of a gentleman, bust-length, in a black tunic and white collar,...

Nigel Fletcher, Director of the Conservative History Group and new editor of the Conservative History Journal has an interesting piece about Prime Minister's Questions at the age of 50 (more or less). On the whole, he thinks the experiment has worked as it places the British Prime Minister, uniquely, in a position where he (or she, let us not forget) is bombarded by questions from the Opposition and sometimes his (her) own backbenchers. The fact that many of the questions are put-up jobs remains a minor detail.Some themes that...

It started with thisand went on to this. (And many other things that are less attractive.)Budapest, October 23, 1...

Following the publication of the highly praised biography of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner by Susie Harries, the Victorian Society will be holding a one-day seminar on October 29 about Pevsner and Victorian architecture. All details, including fees, place and time to be found through the link above. (Susie Harries's blog about Pevsner is here and very interesting it looks, to...

October 21, 1...

Tim Stanley, the Contrarian, has a good piece in History Today, which deals with the ridiculous issue of David Starkey's comment about the lootings of this summer, thata particular sort of nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together'.The ridiculousness does not come from the rightness or wrongness of that comment. There are good historical reasons for disagreeing...

Tory Historian is reading Edward Glaeser's Triumph of the City, an unashamed and sometimes slightly too gung-ho praise of the idea and reality of the city in history. Not that TH disagrees with that; it's just that the language is sometimes immoderately joyful, a mode that is alien to TH. At an early stage, Glaeser says this:I find studying cities so engrossing because they pose fascinating, important, and often troubling questions. Why do the richest and the poorest people in the world so often live cheek by jowl? How do once-mighty...

Actually it was yesterday but Tory Historian was busy with other non-cyber matters. A belated happy birthday to Baroness Thatcher, three-times Conservative Prime Minister and still an inspiration to many across the world, for yesterd...

Tory Historian is something of a Wyndham Lewis fan, considering him to be one of the most underrated artists and writers of the twentieth century. Leafing through the 1954 collection of essays, first published in The Listener, entitled The Demon of Progress in the Arts, TH found a very fine piece, called The Glamour of the Extreme and was particularly taken by the second paragraph:I have a friend who is a natural bourgeois. He was the son...

Children's literature, if it is to be successful with children has to tread a fine line between conservatism (which is what most children are most of the time) and subtle rebelliousness (which is what their parents are most of the time). The William Brown stories, written by a true-blue Conservative, Richmal Crompton, manage to tread that line very successfully, though there is the odd exception, as Derek Turner discusses in this highly entertaining and knowledgeable article on the writer and her work. The story of the Outlaws...

Fought 440 years ago on October 7, 1571 it is also the cause of a great poem by one of the most conservative poets of the twentieth century, G. K. Chesterton, published 100 years ago, in 1911 (well, not to the day).Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.) And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain, And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade.... (But Don John...

The National Portrait Gallery is a wonderful institution and is of great value to anyone who finds history and its players interesting. Its special exhibitions, on the other hand, are variable from that point of view and are too often merely collections of various glamour photographs of recent stars. This exhibition, about to open, however, will be a collection of glamour portraits of the stars of the past. The First Actresses presents a vivid spectacle of femininity, fashion and theatricality in seventeenth and eighteenth-century...

For various reasons to do with an article to be completed Tory Historian has been reading a fascinating book by Alison K. Smith, called Recipes for Russia, subtitled Food and Nationhood under the Tsars. It deals partly with attempts to discuss and reform agriculture in Russia in the nineteenth century and partly with the late development of cookery books from the end of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, analyzing the...

Every now and then one can find some truly useful information on Wikipedia. This list of the world's Independence Days, sent to Tory Historian by a well-wisher, is one of them. It has all the national flags as well, which is an added bonus. Some countries have several Independence Days. Armenia, for example, celebrated one on September 21 and will be celebrating one on May 28. The first commemorates independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the second from the Ottoman Empire in 1918.The Baltic States have separate days to...

As usual, Tory Historian will produce the odd blog or two on the subject but it is worth reminding readers in or near London of this wonderful event. If I may make a suggestion, try to buy the whole booklet of what is open in some friendly bookshop (too late to do so on line) rather than try to figure out what to do and where to go from the website. Happy hunti...

Tory Historian has never quite understood why the bien pensants otherwise known as people who never read detective stories, considering them to be inferior, but like pontificating consider Agatha Christie's novels to be particularly unrealistic. It is true that criminals are not always brought to justice (and they are not always in her novels either) but that is the premiss of that most conservative of genres, the detective story.It is...

Here are a few questions to mull over: Which was the largest popular political organization in this country? Which political organization first ensured that membership was open to all classes and people of all incomes? Which political organization involved public activity by women of all classes and in large numbers? Which political organization first had events, both social and educational, for children and young people? [The picture below...

As the debate about education and its failings rages and as new attempts are made to counter what is seen as the pernicious influence of various educational theories, it is useful to look back on what was said in the past. David Linden, a Ph.D. student at King's College, London, whose interests lie in the modern day Conservative Party looks at a previous educational debate in the sixties and seventies, when the authors of the Black Papers on Education clashed with the educational establishment....

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There is always something interesting in History Today. Sometimes it is very little but always something. Today's e-mail brought two links that were worth following up. One is to blog posting by Lulu Ramsey, which analyses the history of the term "terrorism" from its first use in the Revolutionary France of the late eighteenth century where the government used terror to control the country to the present usage, taking into account the evolution of perception of the Gunpowder Plot and anarchist terrorist outrages of the late...

If ever there was a conservative writer of detective stories it was Cyril Hare, a.k.a. Alfred Alexander Clark, a County Court judge, even if an aunt of his seems to have been a socialist politician. (Well, a Labour politician, at least, one of the large group of wealthy non-working class socialists, ever present in the Labour Party.) Cyril Hare's novels are based on his own experiences in various parts of the legal system and, even, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, a fascinating bit of wartime bureaucracy, which figures in...

Many people know what the Whig interpretation of history is, if only in the hilariously parodic version of 1066 And All That, a book I always recommend to anyone who wants a quick summary of English history. (Here is a link to the text but, really, one needs the book in front of one because of the illustrations and because it is easier to shed tears of laughter over a book than in front of a screen.) The man who first analyzed and defined...

This was advertised in the Conservative History Journal but it is really a National Trust Event though a lecture about Disraeli at Hughenden Manor must be of interest to anyone who is interested in conservative history with either a capital or a small c.The Immortal Dizzy: Benjamin Disraeli 130 Years On A special Disraeli celebration lunch to mark the 130th anniversary of his death at which Lord Lexden, the official historian of the Conservative Party and author of a history of the Primrose League, will speak More Information:...

Event Number 6 on the London Historians siteKENSAL GREEN CEMETERY TOUR Sunday 18 September 2011, 2pm – 5pm (approx) Meet at the Anglican Chapel. Nearest Tube: Kensal Green or Ladbroke Grove. Kensal Green Cemetery is one of the so-called Magnificent Seven – cemeteries which were established in London’s suburbs during the Victorian period in the interests of public health. Notable “residents” include the Brunels (pere and fils), Charles Babbage, Anthony Trollope and many others. We have 12 places booked on the official tour...

Tory Historian spent the morning at the Tate Gallery or Tate Britain as it is now known and saw The Vorticists exhibition. By no stretch of imagination were the Vorticists conservative but the movement was genuinely exciting and innovative in Britain with real links to Continental art movements (though they refused to be associated with Marinetti and the Futurists). It is, Tory Historian thinks, their refusal to fit in with the rather cosy,...

For those who are interested in the extraordinarily important ideas that Adam Smith expressed and detailed in The Wealth of Nations but find it a little hard to get through the lengthy original, Tory Historian can recommend the latest publication by the Adam Smith Institute. It is a condensed version of the great work, with a few original quotations as well as some comments and additions that refer to the more modern period by Dr Eamonn Butler. As a special bonus there is also the Incredibly Condensed Theory of Moral Sentiments....

That is an odd title for a posting on the Conservative History blog but, let us not forget, that song is now history, though fairly recent, and Bob Dylan is seen as something of a conservative by many. Anyway, to our muttons: despite my previous postings about the printed version of the Conservative History Journal, its appearance (and a very fine appearance it is, too) has little to do with me. For various reasons of convenience the editorship...

It is surely no secret to anyone who is interested in the politics and satire of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that both used to be a good deal nastier and politicians did not complain when they were accused of all sorts of highly unpleasant, anti-social, disgraceful and, sometimes, illegal activity in the most outspoken fashion. The same went for members of society as a whole. One of the funniest and nastiest of cartoonists...