I would think that a true conservative would have accepted the kind of changes Don Firth mentions, changes which have taken place and survived for a generation or so, and would seek to defend them, as forming part of the status quo.

Surely trying to restore a previous state of affairs by changing the present system wouldn't actually count as "conservative" but rather as a type of radical reformism. Actually "reactionary" is the more accurate word - defined in the Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought as "applied to those who not merely resist change but seek to put the clock back and return to some earlier order of society which is seen as having possessed characteristics...which the present is felt to lack..."

However the word "reactionary" has accrued to itself all kinds of pejorative associations, so it's unfair to expect people to use it to describe themselves. That's a pity really because it'd be a useful term to be able to use without those associations - and there are all kinds of ways in which turning the clock back would be an excellent thing. But in saying that I'm probably thinking of some very different aspects of the past.