Young England

Young England was a Victorian era political group with a political message based on an idealised feudalism: an absolute monarch and a strong Established Church, with the philanthropy of noblesse oblige as the basis for its paternalistic form of social organisation.^[1] For the most part, its unofficial membership was confined to a splinter group of Tory aristocrats who had attended Eton and Cambridge together, among them George Smythe, Lord John Manners, Henry Thomas Hope and Alexander Baillie-Cochrane. The group's leader and figurehead was Benjamin Disraeli, who bore the distinction of having neither an aristocratic background nor a public school or university education. Young England promulgated a conservative and romantic species of social Toryism.

Richard Monckton Milnes is credited with coining the name Young England, a name which suggested a relationship between Young England and the mid-century groups Young Ireland, Young Italy, Young Germany, and Young Europe. However, these political organisations, while nationalistic like Young England, commanded considerable popular support and (following lead Young Italy organiser Giuseppe Mazzini) were socially liberal and politically egalitarian and broadly republican.^[2]