The next day, an estimated thirty to forty thousand people turned up at the immense dance hall of Pomona Gardens to watch a parade of banners by hundreds of the region’s Conservative Associations. This prepared the way for the main event that night: a public address in the Free Trade Hall. (It was spectacularly ironic that Disraeli, who in 1846 had split the Conservative party on the issue of Protection, was to give one of his most famous speeches in a hall named for Free Trade.)
