Confederacy (British political group)

The Confederacy was a society within the British Conservative Party that enthusiastically promoted Joseph Chamberlain's campaign for Tariff Reform. A founder of the society, Henry Page Croft, later wrote that "It was started by three or four of us who held the view that nothing was worth fighting for except Chamberlain's battle, and we determined to do our best to drive the enemies of tariff reform out of the Conservative Party".[1]

It was a secret society in order, according to Croft, "to appear much more important than we in fact were. Our idea was to endeavour to get large numbers of young men drawn from the aristocracy and country gentlemen who would devote themselves to the cause and fight constituencies wherever and whenever they were required".[2] At their height they numbered around 50 members, with 30 entering Parliament, 9 gaining office and 4 becoming Cabinet ministers.[3] Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland was a member.[4] Edward Goulding was closely connected with the Confederacy.[5]

The first meetings were held at Fanhams Hall. The organisational skills of Thomas Comyn Platt and others ensured the Confederacy received national attention in the press and elsewhere.[6]

Notes
  1. Lord Croft, My Life of Strife (London: Hutchinson, 1948), p. 43.
  2. Croft, p. 43.
  3. Croft, pp. 43-44.
  4. E. H. H. Green, ‘Maitland, Sir Arthur Herbert Drummond Ramsay-Steel- , first baronet (1876–1935)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009, accessed 7 Jan 2014.
  5. Alan Sykes, ‘Goulding, Edward Alfred, Baron Wargrave (1862–1936)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 7 Jan 2014.
  6. Croft, p. 43.

Further reading
  • Alan Sykes, ‘The Confederacy and the Purge of the Unionist Free Traders, 1906-10’, Historical Journal, xviii, 2 (1975), pp. 349–366.
  • L. Witherell, Rebel on the Right: Henry Page Croft and the Crisis of British Conservatism, 1903–1914 (1997).
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