Training Minds for the War of Ideas

In Training Minds for the War of Ideas , Clarisse Berthezene explores how Ashridge College was developed by Conservatives as a response to intellectual projects on the Left during the 1920s and 1930s. Ashridge was intended to train ‘Conservative Fabians’, acting as a response to the development of a mass electorate and the growing influence of the professional middle-classes, as well as providing a think-tank for politicians and activists. The rhetoric of Baldwin’s ‘New Conservatism’, which combined support for moderate social reform with claims to represent the nation against the sectional class interests of Labour, is familiar thanks to the work of historians such as Philip Williamson and Sian Nicholas. However, Berthezene’s book plays an important role in demonstrating how Baldwinian ideas were discussed by politicians and activists and then disseminated to the constituencies. The main body of the book explores the intellectual culture of Ashridge through a series of thematic chapters, which discuss issues such as interpretations of party history, debates about social service, and the place of the countryside in national life. Empire was the theme that featured most regularly in Ashridge lectures during the 1930s, with a tendency to focus on Britain’s efforts to develop the colonies and abolish ‘barbaric customs’ in India. Ashridge’s influence spread across all levels of the party. Neville Chamberlain and his wife Annie had been prominent in promoting civic training amongst Conservative activists in the 1920s, with the latter establishing the Unionist Women’s Institute movement which was imitated widely. As party chairman in 1930, Neville Chamberlain proposed the creation of ‘Ashridge committees’ in each constituency and ‘Ashridge clubs’ to spread information about the college and its publications. Along with the activities of the Right Book Club and the Tory periodical press, Ashridge thereby played an important role in establishing a ‘middlebrow’ culture in interwar Britain which became closely connected with Conservatism

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• Peering into the future

  Open Access•Robert Crowcroft•Historical Research•2017

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