“National Liberal Federation,” under the control of influential people who were loyal to the Central Office. In this respect the Conservative party, as an internally loyal party, had some advantage in organization; and such independent outbreaks as that of the “Fourth Party” (in the parliament of 1880), while stimulating to the Central Office, may be said to have applied a useful massage rather than to have led to any breaking of bones; while the Primrose League and similar new bodies acted as co-operating agencies. Mr Gladstone’s proposal of Home Rule for Ireland in 1886 resulted in a great accession of strength to the party, owing to the splitting off of the Liberal Unionists from the Liberal party. From this time the term “Unionists” began to come into use, to signify both the Conservative and the Liberal Unionist parties; the distinction between the two wings gradually grew smaller; and by degrees the name of “Conservative party,” though officially maintained, became more and more vague, as politics centred round Ireland, Imperialism or Tariff Reform.
See also M. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (Eng. trans., 1902); T. E. Kebbel, History of Toryism (1886).
CONSERVATOIRE (the Fr. equivalent of Ital. Conservatorio,
Ger. Conservatorium, from Med. Lat. conservatorium, a place
where anything is preserved, Lat. conservare, to preserve), a
public institution for instruction in music and declamation.
The name Conservatoire is generally used not only of the French
institutions to which it properly applies, but also of the Italian
Conservatorio and the German Conservatorium, and even
sometimes of English schools of music. In the United States,
however, the anglicized form “Conservatory” is used, a form
far more satisfactory from the point of view of linguistic purity,
but difficult to establish in England owing to its common application
to a particular kind of green-house (see Horticulture).
The Italian conservatorios were the earliest, and originated in
hospitals for the rearing of foundlings and orphans (whence
the name) in which a musical education was given. When fully
equipped, each conservatorio had two maestri or principals,
one for composition and one for singing, besides professors for
the various instruments. Though St Ambrose and Pope Leo I.,
in the 4th and 5th centuries respectively, are sometimes named
in connexion with the subject, the historic continuity of the
conservatoire in its modern sense cannot be traced farther back
than the 16th century. The first to which a definite date can
be assigned is the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loretto, at
Naples, founded by Giovanni di Tappia in 1537. Three other
similar schools were afterwards established in the city, of which
the Conservatorio di Sant' Onofrio deserves special mention on
account of the fame of its teachers, such as Alessandro Scarlatti,
Leo, Durante and Porpora. There were thus for a considerable
time four flourishing conservatorios in Naples. Two of them,
however, ceased to exist in the course of the 18th century, and
on the French occupation of the city the other two were united
by Murat in a new institution under the title Real Collegio di
Musica, which admitted pupils of both sexes, the earlier conservatorios
having been exclusively for boys. In Venice, on the
other hand, there were from an early date four conservatorios
conducted on a similar plan to those in Naples, but exclusively
for girls. These died out with the decay of the Venetian republic,
and the centre of musical instruction for northern Italy was
transferred to Milan, where a conservatorio on a large scale was
established by Prince Eugene Beauharnais in 1808. The celebrated
conservatoire of Paris owes its origin to the Ecole Royale
de Chant et de Declamation, founded by Baron de Breteuil in
1784, for the purpose of training singers for the opera. Suspended
during the stormy period of the Revolution, its place was taken
by the Conservatoire de Musique, established in 1795 on the
basis of a school for gratuitous instruction in military music,
founded by the mayor of Paris in 1792. The plan and scale on
which it was founded had to be modified more than once in
succeeding years, but it continued to flourish, and in the interval
between 1820 and 1840, under the direction of Cherubini, may be
said to have led the van of musical progress in Europe. In more
recent years that place of honour belongs decidedly to the
Conservatorium at Leipzig, founded by Mendelssohn in 1843,
which, for composition and instrumental music, became the chief
resort of those who wished to rise to eminence in the art. Of
other European conservatoires of the first rank may be named
those of Prague, founded in 1810; of Brussels, founded in 1833
and long presided over by the celebrated Fétis; of Cologne,
founded in 1849; and those instituted more recently at Munich
and Berlin, the instrumental school in the latter long enjoying
the direction of Joachim. In England the functions of a conservatoire
have been discharged by the Royal Academy of Music
of London, founded in 1822, which received a charter of incorporation
in 1830, the Royal College of Music (1882), the Guildhall
school, and similar institutions. The chief public institution
for teaching music in the United States is the National Conservatory
of Music of America, founded in New York in 1885.
The famous Dvořák was for a time its director. Other well-known
American establishments are the Peabody Conservatory
in Baltimore (1868), the Cincinnati College of Music (1878),
and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston
(1867).
CONSERVATOR (Lat. conservare, to preserve), one who
preserves from injury, a guardian or custodian. In the middle
ages the title of conservator was given to various officers, such
as those appointed by the council of Würzburg in 1287 to
protect the privileges of certain religious persons, the guardians
of academic rights in the university of Paris, certain Roman
magistrates as late as the 16th century, or the conservator
Judaeorum who was enjoined to look after the Jews of the county
of Provence in 1424. By the 2 Henry V. there was appointed a
conservator of truce and safe conducts in each English seaport
“to enquire of all offences done against the king’s truce and safe
conducts, upon the main sea, out of the liberties of the cinque
ports.” In Scotland the conservator of the realm (c. 1503) had
jurisdiction to settle the disputes and protect the rights of
Scottish merchants in foreign ports or places of trade. In
England the conservators of the peace (custodes pacis) were the
precursors of the modern justices of the peace. Stubbs traces
their origin to the assignment of knights, in 1195, to enforce the
oath to preserve the peace which Richard I. ordered to be taken
by all persons above the age of 15. By the 1 Edward III.
conservators of the peace were appointed for each county to
guard the peace and to hear and determine felonies. The office
was reconstituted by the parliament of 1327, and its powers were
extended in 1360. From the sovereign and the lord chancellor
down to the justice and the village constable, all who have to do
with the repression of crime are included within the general
term of conservators of the peace. As commonly used nowadays
in England, the term conservator is applied only to the guardian
of a museum or of a river (see Thames).
CONSETT, an urban district in the north-western parliamentary
division of Durham, England, 20 m. S.E. of Newcastleupon-Tyne
by a branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop.
(1901) 9694. It is the centre of a populous industrial district.
At Shotley Bridge (where there is a small spa) a colony of German
metal-workers, making swords and knives, was established in
the 17th century; but this industry has now been replaced by
paper mills. There are extensive collieries and ironworks in the
district.
CONSHOHOCKEN, a borough of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania,
U.S.A., on the Schuylkill river, 12 m. N.W. of Philadelphia.
Pop. (1890) 5470; (1900) 5762 (932 being foreign-born);
(1910) 7480. It is served by the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia
& Reading railways. The borough is built on land which
rises gradually from the river-bank for about 14 m. and then
becomes quite level, but the surrounding country is for the most
part occupied by hills, several of which rise to considerable height.
It has a variety of manufacturing establishments, among which
are cotton and woollen mills, rolling mills, steel mills, foundries,
boiler shops, tube works, and works for making surgical instruments
and artificial stone. The place was first settled about
1820, and was for several years known as Matson’s Ford; in
1830 it was laid out as a town and received its present name, an
