The agents were essential in providing what Middleton in 1897 described as the ‘motive power’ for party work in the constituencies between elections. While local party chairmen, honorary secretaries, treasurers, committee members and other activists all played a part in sustaining the day-to-day activities of party organisation, the primary responsibility lay with the agent. This chapter and the next consider three key areas of organisational work: registration, political education and social activities. Studying these from the agents’ point of view offers a fresh perspective on grass-roots political efforts. The agents’ professional journals are an invaluable source, providing a composite picture of political activity in a wide range of constituencies. As such, they serve as a useful complement to important local studies of Liberal and Conservative activity, including those of Janet Howarth on Northamptonshire, Frans Coetzee on Croydon, John Howe on Gloucestershire, Jon Lawrence on Wolverhampton, Matthew Roberts on Leeds, Alex Windscheffel on London and Patricia Lynch on rural Liberalism.

Given the trends towards standardisation of practice which followed from the professionalisation of political work, it is hardly surprising that agents’ experiences of running local party machinery revealed a great deal of convergence between constituencies. Equally, there was much diversity, prompted not only by the differing needs and demands of particular areas – rural county seats could not be managed in the same way as populous industrial boroughs – but also a variety of other considerations. The dominant influence of party finance on the format of local organisation has already been highlighted in explaining the gradual and uneven transition to professional agency, and this particularly had an impact when it came to the complex and costly business of registration. Studies of Liberal and Conservative activity have also pointed to the significance of cultural differences between the parties in determining the nature of their efforts to capture and maintain support. In considering registration, the debate which has emerged from James Cornford's seminal article on the foundations of Conservative success in late Victorian elections – namely that Conservatives wished ‘to avoid rather than confront the mass electorate’, preferring low registers and low turnout – will be re-evaluated from the agents’ standpoint, resulting in a more nuanced interpretation of party attitudes towards the register.