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The Liberty and Property Defence League and Individualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Edward Bristow
Edward Bristow
Affiliation:
New England College, Arundel
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Extract

In 1882, when Dicey's so-called age of ‘Individualism’ was over and the high tide of laissez-faire was receding, there emerged for die first time in Britain a thoroughly dogmatic pressure group for extreme laissez-faire. This was the Liberty and Property Defence League. The League originated as part of what Beatrice Webb described as the ‘reaction against empirical socialism [which] came to a head under Mr Gladstone's administration of 1880–85’. But it out lasted Gladstone's second government and defended laissez-faire widi some effect until the end of the century.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 761 - 789
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 Dicey, A. V., Lectures on the Relation Between Law and Public Opinion in England During the Nineteenth Century (2nd ed., London, 1962).Google Scholar For a summary of the debate on laissez-faire, Taylor, Arthur J., Laissez-faire and State Intervention in Nineteenth-century Britain (London, 1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Webb, Beatrice, My Apprenticeship (Penguin, ed., London, 1971), 196.Google Scholar

3 Earl of Wemyss and March, Memories, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1912), privately printed and in the Wemyss Papers, Scottish Record Office.

4 Free Life, 19 June 1891. Crofts (1848–94) was the cousin of Wordsworth Donisthorpe, the leading theorist amongst the Individualists. See Crofts' obituary, Personal Rights, Dec. 1894. While Crofts did not use a capital letter for the term, capitals are used below to refer to members of the ‘Individualist’ school, and to their doctrine.

5 Lukes, Steven, Individualism (Oxford, 1973)Google Scholar and Swart, Konraad W., ‘Individualism in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 23 (1962) 77–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 On the ‘employers' counterattack’ in the labour market, Saville, John, ‘Trade Unions and Free Labour: The Background to the Taff Vale Decision’, in Essays in Labour History, ed. Briggs, Asa and Saville, John (London, Papermac. ed., 1967), 318—50;Google Scholar Clegg, H. A., Fox, Alan and Thompson, A. F., A History of British Trade Unions Since 1889 (Oxford, 1964), ch. 2, 4;Google Scholar Bristow, Edward, ‘Profit-sharing, Socialism and Labour Unrest’ in Essays in Anti-Labour History (London, 1974), 262—89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the early lobby, Finer, S. E., Anonymous Empire (2nd ed., London, 1966), ch. 1;Google Scholar Clapham, J. H., Economic History of Modern Britain (2nd ed., vol. 2, London, 1951), 145—51;Google Scholar Alderman, Geoffrey, The Railway Interest (Leicester, 1973);Google Scholar Mathias, Peter, The Brewing Industry in England 1700–1830 (Cambridge, 1959)Google Scholar, and the suggestive comments in Castles, Frank, ‘Business and Government: A Typology of Pressure Group Activity’, Political Studies, XVII (1969), 1660—76Google Scholar, as well as in the special number of the Political Quarterly on British pressure groups (Jan.—Mar. 1958). A number of trade groups were begun to oppose trade unionism in the labour market and came to do legislative work as well. Ultimately, it was found more efficient and less of an incitement to separate these functions.

7 On this differentiation, Potter, Alan, ‘Attitude Groups’, Political Quarterly (Jan.–Mar. 1958), 72–82.Google Scholar Thompson, E. P., William Morris, Romantic to Revolutionary (London, 1955), 423.Google Scholar

8 Recent histories of the 1867 Reform Act treat Wemyss in an unflattering manner: Maurice Cowling, 1867: Disraeli, , Gladstone and Revolution (Cambridge, 1967)Google Scholar, passim; Smith, F. B., The Maying of the Second Reform Bill (Cambridge, 1966), 49.Google Scholar On Elcho's early career, see Kauffman, Christopher J., ‘Lord Elcho, Trade Unionism and Democracy’ in Brown, (ed.), Essays in Anti-Labour History (London, 1974), 183–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Wemyss, Memories, 1, 200; ‘Letter to the Electors of East Gloucestershire’ (n.d.) in Speeches (1847–58) and ‘Election Speech at Haddington’ (1859). Wemyss Papers.

10 Elcho to Disraeli, 22 June 1866, Elcho to Kerrison, E., 30 June 1866.Google Scholar Wemyss Papers. Cowling, , 1867, 105—118.Google Scholar

11 Wemyss, , Socialism at St Stephen's (LPDL, 1887)Google Scholar, 6. Mackintosh, John P., The British Cabinet (Toronto, 1962), 167.Google Scholar

12 Elcho to Earl Grosvenor, 9 Mar. 1866. Wemyss Papers.

13 Lord Elcho and the Miners. Employers and Employed (Edinburgh, 1867), 3.Google Scholar

14 On the long-lived Holyoake (1817—1906), whose laissez-faire inclinations later led him to contribute occasionally to the Individualist press, see the Dictionary of Labour Biography, 1 (1972), eds. Joyce M. Bellamy and John Saville, 182–5. On Wemyss' activities, Memories, 1, 375–80; Simon, Daphne, ‘Master and Servant’, in Democracy and the Labour Movement, ed. Saville, John (London, 1954), 179—82, 186—7.Google Scholar Harrison, Royden, Before the Socialists (London, 1965), 37–8, 296.Google Scholar On early closing, Times, 6 June 1860, cutting in Speeches (1860). Wemyss Papers.

15 Wemyss, Memories, 1, ch. 18; Elcho to the Marquis of Tweedale, 22 May 1859 and to Lord Palmerston, 13 Oct. 1862. Wemyss Papers.

16 McCready, H. W., ‘British Labour and the Royal Commission on Trade Unions, 1867–9’, University of Toronto Quarterly (1955), xxiv, 401—3.Google Scholar

17 Elcho, to Macdonald, Alexander, 1874, n.d., in Letters (1874–1875),Google Scholar f. 14. Wemyss Papers. Hansard, , 3rd ser., vol. CCVII, cols. 284—5, 19 June 1871.Google Scholar Elcho, Lord, Speech to the Miners of East Lothian (London, 1873).Google Scholar

18 Elcho to Walter Pierce (Chairman of the Liverpool House and Landowners'Association), 1876, n.d., Letters (1876), f. 9. Wemyss Papers.

19 On George, , Lawrence, E. P., Henry George in the British Isles (East Lansing, 1957)Google Scholar; Thompson, F. M. L., ‘Land and Politics in the Nineteenth Century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. (1965), xv, 23–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The most useful general discussion of the changing climate of opinion is Lynd, Helen, England in the 1880s (New York, 1945).Google Scholar

20 Hansard, 3rd ser., vol. cic, cols. 1760—74, 11 Mar. 1870.

21 Elcho to Somerset, 18 and 21 July 1880; Elcho to Colonel Kingscote, 23 July 1880. Wemyss Papers. Palmer, N. B., The Irish Land League Crisis (New Haven, 1940), 154–5.Google Scholar Southgate, Donald, The Passing of the Whigs (London, Papermac ed., 1965), 370–2.Google Scholar

22 Elcho, to Smith, W. H., 8 Aug. 1880;Google Scholar Northcote, Stafford to Elcho, , 24 Aug. 1881Google Scholar, Elcho, to Grey, Lord, 25 Apr. 1881,Google Scholar Grey, to Elcho, , 2 May 1881.Google Scholar Wemyss Papers. On both Acts, Southgate, , Passing of the Whigs, 368–70, 375–8.Google Scholar

23 On Northcote's opposition policy and the reasons for it, Lang, Andrew, Life, Letters and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote, First Earl of Jddesleigh (new, ed., London, 1891), 309, 314;Google Scholar W. St. Broderick, John, ‘The Functions of Conservative Opposition’, Nineteenth Century, 13 (1883), 155.Google Scholar On Hartington, Hamer, D. A., Liberal Politics in the Age of Gladstone and Rosebery (Oxford, 1972), 77–8.Google Scholar

24 Whig charter LPDL members included the dukes of Bedford and Somerset, the earls of Radnor and Ilchester, Earls Grey and Fortescue, Lord Lyveden, the duke of Sutherland and his son, the marquis of Stafford. The latter two were particularly exercised by the 1881 Irish Land Act. Irish landlords among the charter members included the duke of Abercorn, the earls of Dunraven, Dartrey and Lucan and Viscount Templetown. Among the Scots were Lords Wimborne, Blantyre and the earl of Wharncliffe. Lord Bramwell, the justice who ruled trade union activity illegal in the celebrated Druitt case of 1867, and James Beresford-Hope, Salisbury's reactionary brother-in-law, both joined the LPDL because of the Ground Game Act. For Bramwell (1808–92), one of Wemyss'closest colleagues and a member of the League's council until his death, see Fairfield, Charles, Some Account of George William Wilskire, Baron Bramwell of Hever (London, 1898), 356.Google Scholar For the charter membership, Self-Help versus State Help…Inaugural Meeting of the Liberty and Property Defence League. 1882.

25 Reprinted in Smith, Paul, ed., Lord Salisbury on Politics (Cambridge, 1972), 343–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Capital and Labour, 25 Feb. 1874.

27 Ibid. 25 Feb. 1874, 3 Mar. 1875, 1 Mar. 1876, 14 Mar. 1877 (Annual Reports) and 17 July 1881. Edwards, Clem, ‘Labour Federations’, Economic Journal (1893), 210–11.Google Scholar

28 Alderman, Railway Interest, chs. 4, 6, 7.

29 Anonymous memorandum on employers liability. 20 Aug. 1880. Joseph Chamberlain Papers, JC2/5, University of Birmingham Library. See also Lang, Northcote, 323, diary entry for 4 June 1880.

30 Shipping and Merchant Gazette, 4 Apr. 1884.

31 Reid, H. G. to Chamberlain, , 7, 23 Mar. 1884;Google Scholar Symonds, Arthur J. to Chamberlain, , 8 Mar. 1884;Google Scholar Lothian, J. Bell to Chamberlain, 13 Mar. 1884;Google Scholar Griffiths, R. J. to Chamberlain, , 4, 7 Apr. 1884;Google Scholar Robert Wright ro Chamberlain, 8 May 1884. JC2/14/61, 62, 71, 75, 96. Chamberlain Papers. See also Alderman, Geoffrey ‘Joseph Chamberlain's Attempted Reform of the British Merchant Marine’, Journal of Transport History, n.s., I (1971–1972), 169–82.Google Scholar

32 Sir Edward Watkin (1818–1901) railway promoter and channel tunnel enthusiast, sat as a Liberal M.P., 1864–86, and as a Liberal Unionist until 1895. He was chairman of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire; Metropolitan; South Eastern; and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. He served on the League's council until his death. So did H. D. Pochin (1824–94), one of Wemyss'closest colleagues and a deputy director of the latter two railways as well as a director of eight iron and steel companies. Edward Knatchbull-Hugesson (1829–93) created the 1st Baron Brabourne in 1880, was deputy chairman of the South Eastern and one of the industry's spokesmen in the 1870s and 1880s.

33 The only complete membership list for individuals was published for 1882, above note 24. Afterwards totals are mentioned in the annual reports and persons are named when they attended public League functions and, in the most important cases, when they joined, or died. Extant publications relevant in this regard included LPDL Annual Meetings (1885, 1890, 1894, 1896, 1897); Annual Dinners (1888–9); Annual Reports (1892/3–1908). Also, The Times, 14 Oct. 1884, 1 July 1886, 26 Nov. 1887, 17 July 1890, 16 July 1891.

34 LPDL Annual Meeting (1885), 26.

35 Following the initial account for 1882, the most complete list of the federated membership is in the Annual Report (1893–4), 15–18. Out of 160 trade groups and firms claimed as members, 110 are listed. Others undoubtedly wanted their association to remain unpublicized.

36 By 1893 there were seventeen branches in Britain and another ten abroad. LPDL Annual Report (1893–4). On the Victoria branch, Licensed Victuallers' Guardian, 29 Nov., 6 Dec. 1894.

37 The original Parliamentary Committee included Wemyss, Donisthorpe, H. C. Stephens, manufacturer and Tory M.P., and two philosophically-minded peers, Lord Bramwell and the earl of Pembroke. All were on the original Council, the LPDL's governing body. On Bramwell, above note 24. On Pembroke, Herbert, G. R. C., 13th earl of Pembroke, Political Letters and Speeches, 2 vols. (London, 1896).Google Scholar

38 Free Life, 19 June 1891.

39 The initial and sole financial statement shows that the LPDL began with about £1200 and that Wemyss, Sir George Elliot, M.P., of the Mining Association, and Earl Somers and the earls of Pembroke and Lucan all donated £1OO. Self-Help Versus State Help. Subscriptions from federated groups varied. Thus the Goldsmiths Co. subscribed,£100 annually and the Licensed Victuallers' Central Protection Society only £10. C. Prideaux to W. C. Crofts, 26 Apr. 1892 and Frederick Millar to Wemyss, 22 Apr. 1896. Wemyss Papers. It was claimed that only 5% of subscriptions came from landowners. Liberty Review, 17 Aug. 1895.

40 Wemyss to Millar, 22 Jan. 1906. Wemyss Papers. Millar (1864–1929), a disciple of George Jacob Holyoake, was a contributor to the rationalist press, a founding member of the Rationalist Press Association, as well as a Spencerian and editor of the LPDL's Liberty Review, from 1897– 1909. On Millar, see Solden, Norbert, ‘Laissez-Faire as Dogma: The Liberty and Property Defence League’ in Brown, (ed.), Essays in Anti-Labour History, 208–33.Google Scholar

41 Redlich, Joseph, The Procedure of the House of Commons (London, 1908), I, 109, 173; in, 206.Google Scholar

42 In addition to these 119 individuals, most of whom are also mentioned as members, about another score are mentioned as intending to attend but being unable to do so. See note 33 above.

43 Temple, Sir Richard, Letters and Character Sketches from the House of Commons (London, 1912), 431.Google Scholar In addition to Temple (in parliament until 1895) Tomlinson (1905), Stephens, H. C. (1895)Google Scholar, and Watkin, the only Liberal (1900), the active included: Leighton, Stanley (1901);Google Scholar Lawrence, W. F. (1885—1906)Google Scholar; Galloway, William (1895—1906)Google Scholar, an engineering employer; Pretyman, E. G. (1895—1906)Google Scholar, secretary of the Property Protection Society, an instrument of the great London landlords; Kimber, Sir Henry (1885—1910);Google Scholar Dimsdale, Sir Joseph (1900–1906)Google Scholar, one of three lords mayor of London who were members; Greene, H. D. (1892–1905)Google Scholar, a vocal supporter of free labour. Temple, Tomlinson, Leighton and Kimber were also members of the Individualist Club.

44 Jus, 23 Mar. 1888. On Brabourne, above note 32. Wilde, James Plaised (1816–1899)Google Scholar, created the 1st Baron Penzance, 1869, was a judge of the Court of Probate and Divorce and a member of the League's Council until his death. Selwin-Ibbetson, Sir Henry (1826–1902)Google Scholar, Tory, M.P., 1865–1892Google Scholar, and junior minister 1874—80, served on the Council as Lord Rookwood from 1892. Beckett, Sir Edmund (1816–1905)Google Scholar, created the 1st Baron Grimthorpe, 1886, was a designer of Big Ben. Stanley, Henry E. J. (1839–1903)Google Scholar, the 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley from 1869, was a Spencerian contributor to the Individualist press while Hugh Fortescue (1818–1905), the 3rd Earl Fortescue from 1861, published widely on anti-socialist topics, and served on the League's Council from its inception until his death. It is interesting to note that Lord Halsbury, the future lord chancellor, was on the League's Parliamentary Committee in 1886, and was receiving its written whips as late as 1903.

45 See Roach, John, ‘Liberalism and the Victorian Intelligencia’(Cambridge) Historical Journal, XIII (1957), 58—81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On these activities see below.

46 Published as Liberty and Property. LPDL. (1888).

47 Huxley, T. H., ‘Government: Anarchy or Regimentation’, Nineteenth Century, 27 (1891), 860;Google Scholar Donisthorpe, Wordsworth, Principles of Plutology (London, 1876), 163.Google Scholar For praise by his contemporary political scientists: McKechnie, W. S., State and Individual (Glasgow, 1894), 218;Google Scholar Flint, Robert, Socialism (London, 1894), 98.Google Scholar Donisthorpe, a man of wide interests, once devised an international language. From 1893—7, he was president of the Legitimation League, which crusaded for legal rights for bastards.

48 On Levy (1841–1913), Personal Rights Journal, Nov. 1901, and his obituary, Individualist (Nov.—Dec), 1913. From Jan. 1903, the organ of his Personal Rights Association carried the latter title.

49 A. V. Dicey, Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion, preface; Wilson, Roland K., The Province of the State (London, 1911)Google Scholar, introduction. Wilson (1840–1919) was a regular contributor to the Individualist press and a member of the Personal Rights Association.

50 On Mackay (1849—1912), a fixture on the Council of the Charity Organization Society and a prolific author, his obituary, Charity Organization Review, Apr. 1912. On Herbert (1838—1906), Harris, S. H., Auberon Herbert, Crusader for Liberty (London, 1943).Google Scholar

51 Herbert, Auberon, The Voluntaryist Creed, Herbert Spencer Lecture (Oxford, 1908), 5–6.Google Scholar For some interesting comments by his friend, Beatrice Webb, see My Apprenticeship, 198–202.

52 For two sensitive accounts of his personality, Elliot, Hugh, Herbert Spencer (London, 1917), ch. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Ellis, Havelock, From Marlowe to Shaw, ed. Gawsworth, John(London, 1950), 221—8. There is a form letcer announcing his withdrawal from public life, dated 28 July 1880, in the Howell Collection, Bishopsgate Library.Google Scholar

53 Duncan, Life of Spencer, I, 323, 400.

54 Personal Rights Journal, Dec. 1894. On the legislative project, Duncan, Life of Spencer, 11, 8–9, 67—70; Spencer, , ‘A Record of Legislation’, in Various Fragments (London, 1897).Google Scholar On A Plea for Liberty, Spencer to Wemyss, 11 July 1890. Wemyss Papers. On municipal socialism, below.

55 This is most fully developed in his Principles of Ethics, Part 4, 5 (London, 1891, 1893)Google Scholar, which, Spencer wrote to Wemyss, would ‘furnish the positive basis of Individualism under its ethical aspect and also under its political aspect’. Spencer to Wemyss, 11 July 1890. Wemyss Papers.

56 Jus, 30 Mar. 1888 and also by Donisthorpe, ‘Democracy,’ Anarchist, Aug. 1886, ‘In Defence of Anarchy,’ New Review, II (1894), 283–91.Google Scholar Thomas Mackay held a similar position: Mackay, , ed., ‘Investment’ in A Plea For Liberty (London, 1891), 231–2.Google Scholar

57 Spencer, to Donisthorpe, , 13 01 1895, in Duncan, Life of Spencer, vol. 2, 69.Google Scholar

58 Free Life, Oct. 1894, Aug. 1890. Herbert's best known work, the anti-political fable, A Politician in Trouble About His Soul (London, 1884)Google Scholar, was serialized in Der Individualistische Anarchist. One of his followers, John Spence, foresaw a complete replacement of statute law by a common law evolved from the moral sense of mankind. Conscience of the King (London, 1899).Google Scholar

59 Spencer, to Herbert, , 5 Oct. 1890Google Scholar in Duncan, , Life of Spencer, I, 403.Google Scholar Donisthorpe, , Law in a Free State (London, 1895), 12–14;Google Scholar Levy, Outcome of Individualism, Personal Rights Series No. 2 (1904), 8 ff; see also Herbert, and Levy, , Taxation and Anarchism (London, 1912)Google Scholar, and Bax, E. Belfort and Levy, J. H., Socialism and Individualism (London, 1904), 75.Google Scholar

60 See the comments of the American, Tucker, Benjamin, the leading individualist anarchist of his time, on the Individualists: Instead of a Book (Boston, 1907), 38–9, 370–1, 469–72.Google Scholar See also Barker, Ernest, Political Thought From Herbert Spencer to the Present Day (London, 1915), 23, 235.Google Scholar

61 On the negotiations leading up to the League's formation, and the positions of Spencer, and Derby, Lord: Personal Rights Journal, Dec. 1894;Google Scholar Liberty Review, 1 Dec. 1894;Google Scholar journal of the Vigilance Association, Feb. 1882; Self-Help Versus State Help, 3–5.

62 The PRA was founded as the Vigilance Association for the Defence of Personal Rights And For the Amendment of Law Wherein it is Injurious to Women. The long tail was dropped in 1881 and the name was shortened to PRA in 1886. On its founding, Journal of the Vigilance Association, Jan. 1881 (No. 1) and Josephine Butler's comments in Auberon Herbert, The Choice Between Personal Freedom and State Protection. Annual Meeting of the Vigilance Association…Mar. 1880. Howell Collection. On the original crusade, Smith, F. B., ‘Ethics and Disease in the Late Nineteenth Century: the Contagious Diseases Acts,’ Historical Studies, 15 (1971), 118–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 [PRA] Annual Reports (1872, 1873, 1874–5, 1877 1880) passim. Taylor, who was forced to retire due to ill health in 1884 after twenty-two years in Parliament, and Hopwood, who had a reputation for leniency as Recorder of Liverpool, were also, among other things, leaders in the attempt to abolish flogging. See Personal Liberty, Speeches of P. A. Taylor (London: 1884)Google Scholar; on Hopwood, , Reynolds Newspaper, 30 Sept. 1894,Google Scholar Men of Mark Series; J. L. and Hammond, Barbara, [lames Stansfeld (London, 1932).Google Scholar

64 Personal Rights Journal, Dec. 1894.

65 Amongst those who came over from the PRA were Alsagar Hill, a founder of the Charity Organization Society, and J. L. Shadwell, both active in the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, and H. C. Stephens. Charles Loch, the secretary of the C.O.S., looked to the LPDL for assistance after 1900. He found Hill ‘too extreme’. Unpublished Diary, 8 Oct. 1877. Goldsmiths'Library, London University. Donisthorpe resigned over what he called the LDPL's ‘half-hearted and one-sided individualism’. Jus, 23 Mar. 1888. Donisthorpe to Wemyss, 7, II Apr. 1888. Wemyss to Donisthorpe, 8, 12 Apr. 1888. Wemyss Papers.

66 For the Party of Individual Liberty, Herbert, Auberon, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State (Edinburgh, 1885)Google Scholar; Anti-Force Papers (London, 1885)Google Scholar; Harris, Auberon Herbert, 265–6, 278–9, 302. On the Voluntaryist movement in Manchester, Hammersmith, Berwick, Hull, Newcastle and Glasgow, Free Life, May 1891, Feb. 1895, Oct. 1896; on the London Liberty Club, Jus, 25 Mar. 1887, Duncan, David, Life of Herbert Spencer (London, 1908), I, 369—70;Google Scholar on the Spencerian Societies, Times, 19 Apr. 1883, Free Life, 25 July 1890, Liberty Review, Aug. 1907; on the Senate, Senate, Dec. 1895; on the Individualist Club, Liberty Review, 9 May, 8 Aug. 15 Oct. 1896, June 1897, Aug– 1899 June 1900.

67 Free Life, 22 May, 19 June 1891, June 1898, Dec. 1899, Feb. 1900. Personal Rights Journal, June 1891. Liberty Review, Dec. 1900.

68 Mallock, W. H., Memoirs of Life and Literature (2nd ed., London, 1920), 144.Google Scholar See Arthur Balfour's opinions on propaganda in a manuscript of the same year. Add. MSS 49844. Balfour Papers.

69 Mallock, , ‘How to Popularize Unpopular Truths,’ National Review, VII (1887–1888), 227–8Google Scholar and ‘Socialism in England’, Quarterly Review, 155 (1883), 350.

70 Shaw, ‘Rejoinder,’ Fortnightly Review, 55 (1894), 4

71 LPDL Annual Reports, Liberty Review, Jus, passim. In 1893—4, League publications reached a peak of 380,000.

72 Jus, 1, 15 Apr. 1887; Socialism and Individualism. A Debate Between Annie Besant and Frederick Millar. LPDL (1889).

73 Will Socialism Benefit the English People? A Debate Between Henry Mayers Hyndman and Charles Bradlaugh (1884); for his repudiation of the LPDL, Justice, 9 Feb. 1884; Add. MSS 50683 f. 104. Shaw Papers. ‘The New Politics’, manuscript lecture read at the Fabian Society, 20 Dec. 1889.

74 Donisthorpe, . Socialism Analyzed (1888)Google Scholar, which also has an account of one of Crofts'standard lectures, p. 125; Justice, 17 May 1884; also M. J. Lyons, Radicalism and Ransom. A Lecture Delivered [at the] North London Working Men's Club. LPDL (1885). M. D. O'Brien, Socialism Tested by Facts. LPDL (1892). O'Brien, who helped edit Auberon Herbert's Free Life, was one of the League's leading publicists and theorists.

75 Wallas, Graham, Human Nature in Politics (London 1908).Google Scholar For a critique of this approach to anti-socialism, Kidd, Benjamin, Social Evolution (London, 1894), 73–4.Google Scholar For a critique of the use of social science by both sides, Durkheim, Emile, Socialism and St Simon (Antioch Press ed., 1958), 40–1.Google Scholar

76 Hansard, 3rd ser., vol. CCCXXXVIII, cols. 1841–2, 31 July 1889; vol. CCCXXXIX, 263–6, 2 Aug. 1889; vol. CCCXLV, col. 550, 11 June 1890. Personal Rights Journal, Feb. 1891. LPDL Annual Report (1892–3), 51.

77 Hutchins, B. L., Conflicting Ideals: The Two Sides of the Woman's Question (London, 1913), 35.Google Scholar On the Society, , J. A. and Banks, Olive, Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian Britain (Liverpool, 1964), 31–41.Google Scholar Helen Blackburn, on the first Executive Committee of the PRA, was honorary secretary of the Central Committee for Women's Suffrage from 1874. Jesse Bouckerett was in the PRA and organized the first feminist petition presented by J. S. Mill in 1865. She founded the society and co-edited with Miss Blackburn for a half-century its English Woman's Review. Both joined the LPDL and Miss Blackburn joined the Individualist Club. See their obituaries in the Review, Jan. 1903, Blackburn, and Jan. 1906, Boucherett.

78 English Woman's Review, Feb., Apr., May 1886. Journal of the Vigilance Association, Apr. 1886. Jus, 27 May 1887. Hansard, 3rd ser., vol. cccvi, cols. 634–5, 743–5, 785–825, 20, 22, 23 June 1887. Earl Fortescue was president of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, from 1885 to 1894.

79 On the chain and nail industry, Report as to the Conditions of Nail Makers and Small Chain Makers in South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire by the Labour Correspondent of the Board of Trade [345] B.P.P., vol. 91 (1888); for the opposition to regulation, Hansard, 3rd ser., vol. CCCLIV, cols. 953–63, 19 June 1891; vol. CCCLV, cols. 1015—18, 13 July 1891. On the attempts to regulate laundries, ibid. cols. 1026—40; ibid. 4th ser., vol. xxxi, cols. 168—203, l Mar. 1895; vol. xxxv, cols. 147–8, 3 July 1895; vol. xcv, cols. 650–94, 17 June 1901. LPDL Annual Reports (1902, 1904–5, 1905–6). While the Annual Report (1894–5), P. 30, list a Croydon Laundry Women's Union as federated with the LPDL, a massive majority of the women were for regulation: Drake, Barbara, Women in Trade Unions (London, 1921), 27.Google Scholar

80 Hansard, , 3rd ser., vol. CCCLVI, cols. 75—82, 23 July 1891.Google Scholar

81 Hutchinson, H. G., Life of Sir John Lubbock, Lord Avebury (London, 1914), 217, 223–4Google Scholar. Hansard, , 3rd ser., vol. CCCVI, col. 1869, 18 June 1886; vol. CCCVI, col. 182, 22 June.Google Scholar

82 Shield, , 20 July 1886. He retired because of illness in 1888.Google Scholar

83 Journal of the Vigilance Association, Oct. 1886. Personal Rights Journal, Mar., Apr. 1887. Jus, 2 Apr. 1887, 16 Mar. 1888. The Times, 2 May 1888.

84 Hutchinson, Life of Lubbock, 60 and 43, 134–5, 143, 232, 266, 328–30. Hansard, 3rd ser., vol. cccxxv, cols. 1098–1175, 2 May 1888; LPDL Annual Reports (1894–5 to 1901–2). For a Tomlinson block on the bill for half-day closing, Hansard, , 3rd ser., vol. CCCXLV, col. 439, 9 June 1890.Google Scholar

85 Wemyss to Salisbury, 5 May 1899. Salisbury Papers. Christ Church Library. Oxford.

86 Clegg, H. A., Fox, Alan and Thompson, A. F., A History of British Trade Unions Since 1889, 226, 360–1.Google Scholar

87 Hansard, , 4th ser., vol. CIII, cols. 314—35, 18 Feb. 1902.Google Scholar

88 In 1903, the Traders'Defence Association of Scotland asked Wemyss to withdraw his opposition, adding that over 90% of Scottish shopkeepers were for the bill. Message of 2 Apr. 1903. Wemyss Papers.

89 For cases in which it represented the Working Men's Club and Institute Union against regulation of unlicensed clubs, Socialism at St Stephen's in 1883, LPDL (1884), 54–6; Times, 20 June 1888. The League also obtained amendment of the Fishing Boars Act of 1883 on behalf of owners and fishermen, pp. 20–6.

90 Capital and Labour, 19 Jan. 1881, 13 Apr. 1881 (first general meeting of the South Wales Miners'Provident Society) and 5 July 1882 (annual meeting of the Iron Trades' Employers'Association). William T. Lewis, controller of the marquis of Bute's Welsh empire and creator of the miners'scheme, was a leader of the employers'counter-attack and a member of the LPDL's Council in the 1890s.

91 Socialism at St Stephen's, 32–6. See also Welbourne, E., The Miners'Unions of Durham and Northumberland (London, 1921), 200–1.Google Scholar

92 Hansard, , 3rd ser., vol. CCLXXX, cols. 503–14, 13 June 1883.Google Scholar

93 Sixteenth Annual Trades Union Congress (Nottingham, 1883), 21–2.Google Scholar

94 On Free Labour Association involvement, LPDL Annual Meeting (1894), 32—6; Free Labour Gazette, Nov. 1894, Oct. 1894. On McLaren's revolt, Personal Rights Journal, Dec. 1893.

95 On the ballots, Iron and Coal Trades Review, 7 Oct. 1893 and Hansard, 4th ser., vol. xi, col. 1190, 25 Apr. 1893. Pelling, Popular Politics, 8.

96 Wemyss to Salisbury, 5 Jan. 1893; Crofts to Wemyss, 5 Jan. 1893 (forwarded) Salisbury Papers.

97 Add. MSS 44517, f. 45–7, Asquith to Gladstone, 21 Feb. 1893. Gladstone Papers. LPDL Annual Report (1893–4), 41–2.

98 W. H. Cooke (Secretary – Chamber of Shipping) to Sir Richard Temple, 4, 16 June 1892. Report of the Committee of the General Shipowners’ Society (1891—2). Temple Papers. In the possession of the present baronet.

99 ‘Third Annual Report of the Shipowners‘Parliamentary Committee,‘in Liberty Review, 21 Dec. 1895. For another Tomlinson block, Hansard, 4th ser., vol. xiv, cols. 121—3, 26 June 1893.

100 Hansard, , 4th ser., vol. CVII, cols. 777—8, 6 May 1902Google Scholar, and vol. cxxxvi, cols. 945—58, 22 June 1904. Cooke, W. H. (secy. Shipowners'Parliamentary Committee) to Wemyss, 22, 24 June 1904. Wemyss Papers.Google Scholar

101 Campbell-Bannerman to Lord Rosebery, 20 June 1895. Vol. 2. Rosebery Papers. Scottish National Library.

102 Licensed Victuallers'Guardian, 14 Apr., 9 June 1883. Brewing Trade Review, Nov. 1887.

103 Licensed Victuallers'Guardian, 2 Dec. 1882.

104 Ibid., 3, 10 Mar. 1883. Hansard, 3rd ser., vol. CCLXXVI, cols. 1565–83, 6 Mar. 1883. League members active in the commons on behalf of the trade included James Agg-Gardner (1874–95) and O. E. Coope (1877–80, 1883–7), brewers, and Frederick Seager Hunt (1885–95), a spokesman for the distillers.

105 Licensed Victuallers'Guardian, 4 Aug. 1883. Hansard, , 3rd ser., vol. CCLXXXII, cols. 907—25, 30 July 1883Google Scholar.

106 Licensed Victuallers' Guardian, 5 Apr. 1884.

107 On the National Sunday League, Harrison, Brian, ‘Religion and Recreation,’ Past and Present, no. 57 (1967), 105.Google Scholar

108 Hansard, , 3rd ser., vol. cccvi, cols. 5–23, 25 May 1886.Google Scholar Licensed Victuallers' Guardian, 29 May 1886.

109 For the incident, LPDL Annual Reports (1892–3, 1894–5), 58, 37. Liberty Review, 23 Feb., 18 May 1895, 24 Mar., 4 Apr. 1896. Brewing Trade Review, June 1895. Wemyss to Salisbury, 18, 24 Mar. 1896. Salisbury Papers. Millar to Wemyss, 22 Apr. 1896 and Wemyss to Albert Deans, 8 May 1896. Wemyss Papers.

110 Add. MSS 49643, f. 102 Spencer to Sir John Lubbock. Avebury Papers.

111 For some of this work, LPDL Annual Reports (1892–3, 1893–4, 1897–8), pp. 42–3 and 54—5, 35, 7. Frederick Bramwell, State Monopoly or Private Enterprise? LPDL (1884). The author, Baron Bramwell's younger brother, was an eminent civil engineer and ‘the most powerful lay advocate of his time.’ Appleyard, Rollo, History of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (London, 1939). 177.Google Scholar

112 Spencer to Wemyss, 10 June 1890. Wemyss Papers.

113 Crofts to Wemyss, 12 June 1890. Wemyss Papers.

114 The Workers' School Board Program. Fabian Tract no. 55 (1894), 3. On the Ratepayers' Defence League in the School Board election of 1891 and LCC election of 1892, LPDL Annual Report (1892–3), 14. Times, 21, 23, 28 Nov. 1891, Standard, 25 Feb., 3 Mar. 1892, Star, 29 Feb., 7 Mar. 1892. Temple was one of the leaders of the Economical party on the School Board: Temple, , Story of My Life (London, 1896), II, 216–26.Google Scholar

115 Lubbock, Sir John, ‘The Government of London,’ Fortnightly Review, 51 (1892), 162.Google Scholar See also Gardiner, A. G., John Benn and the Progressive Movement (London, 1925).Google Scholar

116 Clarion, , 9 Mar. 1901.Google Scholar

117 There was a West Ham Municipal Alliance and others at Poplar, where Will Crooks became mayor in 1901, and at Battersea, where John Burns dominated the Progressive Alliance. Times, 12, 18, 22 Sept. 1902. There were other early ones at Halifax, Times, 13 Oct. 1902 and Glasgow, , Liberty Review, Nov. 1898, Feb. 1899.Google Scholar

118 On the electricity and tram law: Hennessey, R. A. S., The Electric Revolution (London, 1972), 22;Google Scholar Meyer, Hugo, Municipal Oownership in Great Britain (London, 1906), 44–5, 71.Google Scholar

119 In 1902 an expert committee, which included Lord Kelvin, lobbied the Board of Trade for a change in the law favourable to private enterprise. Meyer, Municipal Ownership, 80—4.

120 Muggeridge, H. T., The Anti-Municipal Conspiracy Exposed (1902),Google Scholar 5. By 1906, 80 towns were relieving rates from trading profits. Reformers' Yearbook (1907), 16.

121 Times, 11 Nov. 1902, last of 17 articles.

122 Liberty Review, Mar., June, July, Sept. 1899; Apr., May 1900. Clarion, 18 Aug. 1900.

123 IFL. Report of the Proceedings of the First Meeting (1903). In 1908 it was absorbed into the Anti-Socialist Union.

124 On Birmingham, , Municipal Journal, 19, 26 Sept., 10 Oct., Nov. 14 1902;Google Scholar on the polls, Municipal Journal, 14 Nov. 1902; 23 Jan., 6 Feb., 27 Mar. 1903; IFL, Report (1903), 4.

125 Hansard, , 4th ser., vol. CXXXIII, cols. 554–5, 19 Apr. 1904.Google Scholar Comments of Austen Chamberlain in his budget speech. See also, Economist, 22 Apr. 1905; 12 May, 27 Oct. 1906.

126 Labour Leader, 27 July 1906; Municipal Journal, 15 Dec. 1905.

127 Municipal Journal, 11 Jan. 1901 (Oswestry) and 27 Feb. 1903; 7, 14, 21 Apr., 26 May, 17 Nov. 1905. Decisions of the Local Government Board, 1903—1910, ed. William A. Casson, pp. 14, 49, 157. On this subject, Schulz, Maureen, ‘The Control of Local Authority Borrowing by the Central Authority’, in Wilson, Charles, ed., Essays in Local History (London, 1948), 161–203.Google Scholar

128 Municipal Journal, 4 Aug., 13 Oct., 1 Dec. 1905.

129 On this subject, Annual Report of the Local Government Board, B.P.P., XXVIII (1907), p. iv.

130 Liberty Review, Sept. 1899.

131 ‘Confidential Report of the Light Railway Commissioners’, 19 Feb. 1902; undated memorandum by H. H. Seward. Gerald Balfour Papers. Boxes 45, 47. P.R.O. Sydney Morse, one of the commissioners, was a leading private investor and on the council of the IFL. On the electricity bill, Municipal Journal, 13 May 1904.

132 Municipal Journal, 17 June 1904. LPDL Annual Reports (1897–8, 1898–9, 1899–1900), 11–12, 9, 7–9. Fairplay Versus Monopoly, LPDL (1898).

133 On its formation, LPDL Annual Report (1897–8), 4. Shaxby, W. J., The Case Against Picketing (London, 1898).Google Scholar Building, printing, mining, etc., were represented with engineering and shipping on the council. On the legislative subcommittee, Master Bidders' Association Journal, Mar. 1898. G. A. Laws, first manager of the Shipping Federation in 1890, and Colonel H. C. Dyer, chairman of the Armstrong Elswick works and prime mover in the EEF, were members of the LPDL who were instrumental in forming this new Association.

134 On its formation, Free Labour, 15 Dec. 1898, Times, 21 Dec. 1898; Macara to Wemyss, 21 Dec, Thomas Biggart (secy. EEF) to Benjamin Browne, 10 Dec, Browne to Wemyss, 11 Dec, Millar to Biggart, 14 Dec. 1898. Wemyss Papers.

135 iron and Coal Trades Review, 11 Dec. and 11 Aug. 1899; also, 22 June 1900 for plaudits at the annual meeting of the British Iron Trades Association.

136 Liberty Review, 15 Nov. 1898; for continuing socialist fears, Labour Leader, 14 Mar. 1903.

137 Macara, Charles, Recollections (London, 1921), ch. 17.Google Scholar

138 Master Builders' Association Journal, Mar., Aug. 1901, Feb., Aug. 1902.Google Scholar

139 Wemyss to Lord Mowbray, 20 Nov. 1906 and to A. J. Worledge, 31 Dec. 1906. Wemyss Papers.

140 Romanes, G., ‘The Spencer-Weismann Controversy’, Contemporary Review, 64 (1893), 50–3.Google Scholar On the ‘new individualism’, see ‘Life and Philosophy of Herbert Spencer’, Quarterly Review, 200 (1904), 240–67Google Scholar; Northcote, Orford, ‘Egoism the Sole Basis of Ethics’, Free Review (1897), 344–55.Google Scholar On ‘external’ Social Darwinism, Semmel, Bernard, Imperialism and Social Reform (Anchor ed., New York 1968), ch. 2.Google Scholar See also Peel, John, Herbert Spencer (London, 1971), chs. I, 9.Google Scholar

141 Wilson, Province of the State, 292. Wemyss was succeeded by Sir Richard Temple's namesake and son. Millar, who lived until 1929, did most of the work.

142 British Constitution Association. Annual Reports (1905–6 to 1917). Constitution Papers, 1906–17.

143 Wilson, W. Lawler, The Menace of Socialism (London, 1909), 441.Google Scholar