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THE LOST WORLD OF YOUNG CONSERVATISM*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2008

LAWRENCE BLACK
LAWRENCE BLACK*
Affiliation:
Durham University
*
Department of History, Durham University, 43 North Bailey, Durham DH1 3EXlawrence.black@durham.ac.uk
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Abstract

The Young Conservatives were primarily a social club, hosting dances, beauty contests, car rallies and winning endorsements from sports stars. They made a virtue of this apolitical reputation to recruit a mass, middle-class membership, and with rhetoric of service and citizenship embedded themselves in local civil society. This article reflects on why this associational culture has been neglected by political and social historians. In the approach of Raphael Samuel's ‘Lost world of British Communism’, it explores the worldview and lifestyle of YCs in 1950s and 1960s Britain, drawing on national, local, and oral sources. Boasting of being ‘the free world's largest youth political movement’ it was a considerable political resource and confounds Conservatism's aged public image in this period. The article accounts for the Ycs' falling membership through the 1960s and discusses its legacy. Decline came as it experienced social and cultural change, as the value of mass party membership diminished and as, after the Macleod report, YCs sought to become more conventionally ‘political’. The resulting debates about politics–social mix are illuminating about political culture more generally. It argues the YCs were not simply victims of social change, but that the decision to become ‘political’ was also a factor. Until the later 1960s it contends the YCs attest to the persistence of strands of Conservatism described by interwar historians like McKibbin and Light – an associational appeal, whose light touch deftly avoided the appearance of being partisan in anything other than name.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 991 - 1024
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

Thanks for feedback are owed to seminars at Birmingham and Cambridge Universities, the 2007 Political Studies Association (Bath) and 2008 European Social Science History (Lisbon) conferences, Laura Beers, Philip Williamson, to the editors and referees, and to former YCs in Nottingham and Birmingham, who corresponded or were interviewed by the author. This research was funded by AHRC (d000092/1) and British Academy grants (sg-42672).

References

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3 Stephenson, Milicent, ‘Now hear this’, Impact, (Spring 1964) pp. 24–5Google Scholar; ‘YCCS – community service’, Impact (Summer 1967), p. 17. Impact and Rightway, national YC magazines in CPA Pub144/4; local YC magazines in the British Library, unless indicated.

4 Notably, Dominic Sandbrook, Never had it so good (London, 2005); Peter Hennessy, Having it so good: Britain in the fifties (London, 2006); Bill Osgerby, Youth in Britain since 1945 (Oxford, 1998).

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22 Abrams and Little, ‘The young activist’, pp. 317, 319; Looking Right, 1959 YC handbook, BCL.

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24 Swinton YC course ‘Methods of recruiting’ (19–21 Feb. 1960), CPA, cco4/8/389; P. Bailey, ‘Cockroaches beware!’, Rightway, 1 (Autumn 1954), p. 2; ibid., 4 (Autumn 1955), p. 2.

25 R. Northam, ‘Those things for which we fight’, Swinton YC course (18–20 Apr. 1958), CPA, cco4/8/391; Eldon Griffiths, ‘The search for higher standards’, Impact (Spring 1966), pp. 26–7; J. S. Gummer, ‘RIP – CND’, Impact (Spring 1964).

26 Rightway, 10 (Autumn 1957), p. 4; Nadler, Too nice, pp. 18, 25; Looking Right (Autumn 1969), pp. 17–18; ibid. (Oct. 1966), p. 34.

27 David Walder, The short list (London, 1964), p. 33; Stephenson, ‘Now hear this’.

28 Ellis, ‘No hammock’, pp. 446–7, 469; Green, Ideologies, pp. 286–90, ch. 9.

29 Epstein, ‘Politics of British Conservatism’, p. 41; East Midlands Area YCs Executive Committee (EC) minutes (4 Nov. 1956, 24 Jan. 1959), Area papers (ARE)5/16/1, (27 Feb. 1963), ARE5/16/2; South East Area minutes (2 Mar. 1955), ARE9/16/2; Impact (Spring 1966), pp. 17–18; ibid. (Summer 1967), p. 13.

30 Holroyd-Doveton, Young Conservatives, pp. 144, 157. As put by Geoffrey Johnson-Smith, Conservative Party vice-chair, Impact (Winter–Spring, 1968–9), p. 9.

31 Abrams and Little, ‘The young activist’, pp. 318–19; correspondence Josephine Smith (31 Aug. 2006); Nadler, Too nice, pp. 19, 27–8.

32 ‘Camulodunum MCMLXV’, Impact (Feb. 1965), p. 11; Young Britons memo 23 May 1962, CPA, cco506/8/2; E. Wilson, ‘All the rage’, New Socialist (Nov./Dec. 1983), p. 26; National YCs Advisory Committee minutes (9 Jan. 1960), CPA, cco506/19/6; GLYC's Glance (Dec. 1966).

33 Rightway, 6 (Spring 1956), p. 3; ibid., 2 (New Year 1955), p. 5; ibid., 12 (with Popular Pictorial (Autumn 1958)), p. 6.

34 Transport Bill press release (9 Feb. 1968), CPA, cco 20/47/3; Peter Walker, Transport policy (London, 1968); National Advisory Committee minutes (1 July 1967), CPA, cco506/19/6; Impact (Spring 1966), p. 6.

35 Peter Barwell (correspondence, 6 Sept. 2006); Looking Right, 1959 YC handbook, pp. 11, 14; ibid., 1960 handbook, Barwell in Looking Right (Jan. 1961), p. 15; ibid. (Oct. 1963), p. 19.

36 Birmingham YCs annual report, 1963 in Central Council minutes, BCL; Looking Right (Winter 1968), p. 25; Looking Right, 1959 YC handbook, p. 18; (Jan. 1961), p. 13.

37 Impact (Feb. 1965), p. 3; Layton-Henry, Zig, ‘The Young Conservatives, 1945–70’, Journal of Contemporary History, 8 (1970), p. 148Google Scholar; Swinton YC leadership course programmes (Feb. 1960, Apr. 1958), CPA, cco4/8/389, 391.

38 ‘Sally joins the YCs’, Rightway, 7 (Oct. 1956), pp. 6–7; Jarvis, David, ‘“Mrs. Maggs and Betty”: the Conservative appeal to women voters in the 1920s’, Twentieth Century British History, 5 (1994), pp. 129–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Layton-Henry, ‘The Young Conservatives’, p. 148; Young Conservative and Unionist Organization, The Macleod report 1965 (London, 1965), p. 5; Looking Right (Summer 1969), p. 31.

40 Walder, ‘Young Conservative identikit’, pp. 24–6; Walder, Short list, pp. 87, 120; Looking Right (Summer 1969), pp. 17–18.

41 Correspondence, Richard Tomlinson (29 Aug. 2006); Epstein, ‘Politics of British Conservatism’, p. 41; Peter Walker, Staying power (London, 1991), p. 55; correspondence, Albert Godfrey (29 Aug. 2006); Abrams and Little, ‘The young activist’, p. 328.

42 Trend (Summer 1964), pp. 8–9.

43 Looking Right (Autumn 1969), pp. 17–18; correspondence with John Wood, Rushcliffe YCs (6 Sept. 2006); Editorial Board minutes (16 Apr. 1964), CPA, cco506/18/2; correspondence, Juliet Gardiner (10 Nov. 2006); Holroyd-Doveton, Young Conservatives, pp. 154–5. Young Conservatives, Action '67 Rally (Programme).

44 A. Driscoll, ‘Birdwatching’, Roundabout Rushcliffe, 2 (1 May 1966), p. 16; Progress, 6 (Summer 1956), p. 34; Blue Horizon (Lowestoft) (Dec. 1969), p. 25; Rightway, 9 (Summer 1957), p. 8

45 Rightway, 9 (Summer 1957), p. 8; Jarvis, ‘“Behind every great party”’, p. 304.

46 Beatrix Campbell, The iron ladies (London, 1987), pp. 1, 265; G. E. Maguire, Conservative women (Basingstoke, 1998), p. 163. For parallels, Sarah Aiston, ‘A Woman's Place’: Male representations of university women in the student press of the University of Liverpool, 1944–79', Women's History Review, 15 (2006).

47 Povey, ‘A Fremlin's view’, p. 25; Gardiner, Juliet, ‘Votes for Women’, Impact (Spring–Summer 1968), p. 21Google Scholar.

48 Times, 18 Sept. 1964; Julian Critchley, A bag of boiled sweets (London, 1995), pp. 32–3; correspondence, Gerald Blackburn (30 Aug. 2006); Buff Orpington (Jan. 1956), p. 14; ‘They're better in the north’, Impact (Winter 1967–8), p. 24; Looking Right (Oct. 1966), p. 34.

49 Roundabout Rushcliffe, 4 (5 Sept. 1966), p. 4; Progress, 6 (Spring 1965), p. 22; Peter Fryer, Mrs Grundy: studies in English prudery (London, 1965), p. 283; Crossbow (Oct.–Dec. 1967).

50 ‘Miss YC 1964’, CPA, cco506/17/1; Glance (Dec. 1966), CPA, cco20/47/2; Impact (Spring–Summer 1968), p. 30. Compare Looking Right (Spring 1968), p. 34, with ibid. (Sept. 1971), p. 27; ibid. (Mar. 1966), p. 32; ibid. (July 1963), p. 24.

51 Rally in CPA, cco4/8/389; Rightway, 12 (joint with Popular Pictorial) (Autumn 1958), p. 12; ibid., 10 (Autumn 1957); ibid., 11 (Summer 1958), pp. 6–7.

52 Circular to YC area organizers (3 Aug. 1962), CPA, cco4/9/489; South East Area Advisory Committee minutes (20 Dec. 1962, 1 Sept. 1964), ARE9/16/3; National Advisory Committee Area Reports (7 Dec. 1963), CPA, cco4/9/489.

53 National Advisory Committee minutes (10 June, 1 July 1967), CPA, cco506/19/6; Mary Dutton (Area YC organizer, Wales and Monmouthshire) to Tony Durant (3 Feb. 1964); Margaret Fundell to Durant (10 Feb. 1964), CPA, cco506/17/1.

54 Rightway, 5 (New Year 1956), p. 6; ibid. (Spring 1956), p. 5; Trend (Winter 1965–6), p. 13; Juliet Gardiner, ‘The world of women's magazines’, Impact (Winter–Spring 1968–9), pp. 12–13; Rose, C., ‘Clothestrophobia’, Progress, 6 (1965), pp. 38–9Google Scholar.

55 Looking Right (Winter 1969), p. 37; Tony Shaw, interview, 6 Feb. 2007.

56 Progress, 6 (Spring 1965), p. 7; David Atkinson, ‘20000 miles through 36 countries’, Impact (Spring–Summer 1968), p. 26; ‘Report on immigration’, in Birmingham YC Central Council minutes (7 July 1965), BCL; Layton-Henry, ‘TheYoung Conservatives’, p. 151; Crowson, Conservative Party, p. 123.

57 Rushcliffe Roundabout, 2 (1 May 1966), pp. 6–7; ibid., 5 (8 Nov. 1966), pp. 14–15; Trend (Summer 1964).

58 Oakeshott, ‘On being Conservative’, p. 169.

59 Correspondence, Richard Tomlinson (29 Aug. 2006); East Midlands Area YC minutes (22 Feb. 1952), ARE5/16/1; South East Area YC minutes (15 Nov. 1956), ARE9/16/2; Walder, Short list, pp. 153–4; Layton-Henry, ‘The Young Conservatives’, p. 147; Looking Right (Mar. 1966), p. 36.

60 Holroyd-Doveton, Young Conservatives, p. 156; Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The civic culture (London, 1989 (1963)), pp. 97–101; Harvey, Iris, ‘Have we Young Conservatives any opposition?’, Swinton College Journal, 3 (Dec. 1954)Google Scholar.

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63 Alan Birch, Small town politics (Oxford, 1959), pp. 76–7; Gaitskell in Looking Right (Jan. 1963), p. 22; Jennings, Party politics, pp. 215–21, 219.

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69 Rightway, 7 (Oct. 1956), pp. 7–8; ibid., 6 (Spring 1956), p. 5; ibid., 8 (Winter 1957), pp. 7–8; ibid., 10 (Autumn 1957), p. 7; ibid., 11 (Summer 1958), p. 3; ibid., 12 (Autumn 1958), p. 12; Moss, correspondence (7 Feb. 2006).

70 National Advisory Committee minutes (9 Jan. 1960), CPA, cco506/19/6; Ted Dexter, ‘Cricket in mind’, Impact (Spring 1964); South East Area YCs Advisory Committee minutes (18 July 1961), ARE9/16/3.

71 Holroyd-Doveton, Young Conservatives, pp. 50, 152; Walder, Short list, p. 99.

72 South East Area YCs Advisory Committee minutes (13 Apr. 1954), ARE9/16/1; ‘Buxton 1966’, Roundabout Rushcliffe, 6 (16 Dec. 1966), pp. 14–15; The Whip (Apr. 1958), p. 4.

73 Membership figures (27 July 1967), CPA, cco20/47/2; Holroyd-Doveton, Young Conservatives, p. 61. Whilst chairman 1958–60, Peter Walker believed YC membership was at its peak, Staying power, p. 19; V. Jennings, ‘Policy-makers amid the party-goers’, Looking Right (Sept. 1965), p. 31.

74 Macleod report, pp. 4–7, 13, 26; Viscountess Davidson's letter (8 Oct. 1965), ‘Final report’ (1965), CPA, cco506/8/4; Daily Express, 14 Aug. 1965.

75 Looking Right (Autumn 1969), pp. 17–18; psephology group minutes (18 July 1960), Conservative Research Department (CRD)2/21/6; Ellis, ‘No hammock’, pp. 454, 466; ‘Camulodunum MCMLXV’, p. 11; Macleod report, p. 13.

76 ‘Review of the YC movement’, pp. 2–4, East Midlands Area EC minutes (27 Mar. 1965), ARE5/16/2.

77 ‘YCCS – community service’, p. 17; Trend (Winter 1965–6), p. 25; ‘65 generation YC’, Impact (Feb. 1965), p. 25.

78 T. R. Fairgieve (president, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Association) to Edward Du Cann, 9 Nov. 1965, CPA, cco20/47/1; correspondence Peter Barwell, John Wood (6 Sept. 2006). Macleod report, p. 22; Whiteley, Seyd, and Richardson, True Blues, p. 44.

79 ‘They're better in the north’, p. 24; National Advisory Committee minutes (6 Mar. 1965), CPA, cco506/19/6; Walder, ‘Young Conservative identikit’, pp. 24–6.

80 ‘Survey of young people – pilot survey 1’ (May 1966), CPA, cco180/34/1/2; Opinion Research Centre, ‘The Young Conservatives’ (July 1966), CPA, cco180/34/1/3.

81 Lear in Jennings, ‘Policy-makers’; J. S. Gummer, ‘The 1234567890 ages of a Young Conservative’, Impact (Spring 1966), pp. 5–7; Alan Haslehurst, ‘The diagnosis’, Impact (Feb. 1965), p. 28.

82 National Advisory Committee minutes (7 Dec. 1968), CPA, cco506/19/6; Blue Horizon (Dec. 1969), p. 4; Looking Right (Autumn 1969), pp. 17–18, 25; ibid. (Jan. 1965), p. 28; Birmingham YCs annual report 1967; General Purposes Committee (20 Nov. 1968), BCL.

83 I. Macleod, ‘On ideals of service’, Looking Right (Apr. 1962), p. 32.

84 ‘YCCS – community service’; Looking Right (Spring 1966), pp. 17–18; ibid. (Summer 1969), p. 31; ibid. (Sept. 1970), pp. 19–21; Holroyd-Doveton, Young Conservatives, pp. 189–90.

85 East Midlands EC minutes (14 Jan. 1967, 20 Jan. 1968), ARE5/16/3; Le Bosquet, ‘A new concept’ (n.d., c. 1967/8), CPA, cco20/47/2; Looking Right (Summer 1968), p. 36.

86 Impact (Spring–Summer 1968), p. 22; East Midlands EC minutes (4 Oct. 1969, 14 June 1968), ARE 5/16/3; action notes (n.d., c. 1968/9), CPA, cco20/47/3; Looking Right (Summer 1969), p. 31.

87 Hugh Holland, ‘Homelessness’, Looking Right (Winter 1969), p. 25; Garry Jones, ‘Revolt!’, Impact (Spring–Summer 1968), p. 12.

88 Juliet Gardiner, ‘I took my flower to a YC ball but nobody asked me to frug!’, Impact (Winter 1967/8); (Spring–Summer 1968), pp. 22, 28; correspondence, Gardiner (10 Nov. 2006); H. Morgan, ‘Pop pirates’, Impact (Spring 1966); ibid. (Winter 1967), p. 14.

89 Impact (Spring–Summer 1968/9), p. 26; Central Office circular (13 Aug. 1961), CPA, cco4/8/390; Crowson, Conservative Party, p. 122.

90 Trend (Winter 1965–6), p. 4; Progress, 6 (Summer 1965), p. 33; Impact (Summer 1967), p. 7; Gummer correspondence (15 May 2006).

91 The Whip (Apr. 1958), p. 7; South East YC Advisory Committee minutes (21 Mar. 1956), ARE9/16/2.

92 East Midland Area YC EC minutes (14 Jan. 1967, 7 July 1968), ARE5/16/3; Le Bosquet, ‘Chairman's proposals’ (14 June 1968), ARE5/16/3; Jones, ‘Revolt!’; Craig, A., ‘Conservatives and campus protests’, Impact (Winter–Spring 1968–9), pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

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94 GLYCs, Set the party free (London, 1969), p. 20; Whiteley, Seyd, and Richardson, True Blues, pp. 31–2. Green, Ideologies, pp. 283–4.

95 Layton-Henry, ‘The Young Conservatives’, p. 155; chairman to Heath, 13 July 1967, CPA, cco20/47/2; Chalker, Evening News, 5 July 1969; Haslehurst–Heath correspondence (16–20 Oct. 1969), CPA, cco20/47/3; Seyd, P., ‘Democracy within the Conservative Party’, Government and Opposition, 10 (1975), pp. 219–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 Ross McKibbin, Classes and cultures: England, 1918–1951 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 96–8, 202–5; ‘Classes and cultures: a postscript’, Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für die Geschichte der sozialen Bewegungen, 27 (2002), pp. 154–65.

97 Light, Forever England, pp. 14–18, 106, 211–13, 221.

98 Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible empire (Cambridge MA, 2006), ch. 1.

99 McCarthy, Helen, ‘Parties, voluntary associations and democratic politics in interwar Britain’, Historical Journal, 50 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a related discussion see Gidlow, Liette, ‘Delegitimizing democracy: civic slackers, the cultural turn, and the possibilities of politics’, Journal of American History, 89 (2002), pp. 922–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 Jean Blondel, Voters, parties and leaders (Harmondsworth, 1966), pp. 12, 94–100, 129; Tether, Philip, ‘Clubs: a neglected aspect of Conservative organization’, Hull Papers in Politics, 42 (1988), pp. 2–4Google Scholar, 57–66; Jennings, Party politics, p. 215.

101 Ronald Frankenberg, Communities in Britain (Harmondsworth, 1967), p. 152; G. Smith, ‘The successful agent’, Conservative Agents' Journal, 435 (Oct. 1957), pp. 233–5.

102 Frankenberg, Communities, ch. 6; Margaret Stacey, Tradition and change: a study of Banbury (Oxford, 1960), pp. 50–5; Hugh Berrington, ‘Banbury’, in David Butler, ed., The British general election of 1955 (London, 1969), p. 132; Margaret Stacey, Eric Batstone, Colin Bell, and Anne Murcott, Power, persistence and change: a second study of Banbury (London, 1975), pp. 40–69.

103 Mark Arnold-Foster, ‘Tory funds’, Guardian, 29 Jan. 1964; Albright News 6 (June 1962), works magazine; Neill Nugent, ‘The ratepayers’, in R. King and N. Nugent, eds., Respectable rebels (London, 1979), p. 27; Samuel, ‘Lost world’, p. 10.

104 Jennings, Party politics, pp. 215–21, 216, 172–3; RHR, ‘The Jews and the Tory Party’, Conservative Agents' Journal, 513 (Feb. 1965); James Douglas to Ian Fraser (head of CRD, 22 Jan. 1959), CRD2/8/20.

105 Nadler, Too nice, pp. 46, 52–8; Richard Hoggart, Townscape with figures (London, 1994), pp. 202, 170–4, 136–9, 12–13, xvii–xviii; Light, Forever England, p. 15.

106 Looking Right (Spring 1969), p. 26; E. H. H. Green, ‘The Conservative Party, the state and the electorate, 1945–1964’, in Lawrence and Taylor, eds., Party, state and society; East Midlands Area chairman's report (1966), ARE5/16/2.

107 Jennings, Party politics, pp. 210, 228.

108 Whiteley, Seyd, and Richardson, True Blues, p. 228.