WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE
Seen as perhaps the greatest British politician of the 19th century Gladstone is the only Prime Minister ever to have served four terms in office. He is credited as having created the political system and state structure that we enjoy today, having banished vested interests and enlarged the electorate. In his early years he was a traditional and conservative Tory, a product of Eton College and Christ Church College, Oxford. He was the youngest son of the wealthy Scottish born Liverpool merchant Sir John Gladstone 1^stBt. (1764-1851). The evangelical family were highly successful merchants who had acquired their fortune through the transatlantic trade in corn and tobacco and their extensive West Indian sugar plantations. At the abolition of slavery he received over £100,000 in compensation. Sir John was determined to establish a political dynasty and although three of sons sat as members of parliament it was William who scaled the heights of Westminster. His first post was in the Robert Peel 1834/5 government sitting as M.P. for Newark, a seat controlled by the Duke of Newcastle, to which he had been elected in 1832.

Whilst on a tour of the Continent in 1839 Gladstone met and fell in love with the daughter of a North Welsh baronet. He married Catherine (1812-1900), daughter of Sir Richard Stephen Glynne, 8^th Bt. of Harwarden Castle, Flintshire in 1839. She was described as having a lively wit, exceptional charm and complete discretion. Together they had eight children. The couple were close to Catherine’s bachelor brother Sir Stephen Glynne 9^th Bt. (1807-1874) and they lived together for many at his gothic revival house Harwarden Castle. On Sir Stephen’s death in 1874 he bequeathed the estate, the castle and its contents to Mr and Mrs Gladstone’s eldest son William Henry Gladstone (1840-1891). The Gladstone family had helped save Sir Stephen from ruin following a failed investment in a coal and iron works in 1845.

In Peel’s 1841 government Gladstone was made vice-president of the Board of Trade, becoming president in 1843. He excelled in the role supporting free trade and improved working conditions for the London dock works. When the Conservative party split in 1846 Gladstone emulated Peel and became a Liberal-Conservative. In 1847 he contested and won the seat for Oxford University. In December 1852 he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first of his four periods in the office. The position was complicated by the financial demands of the Crimean War. During his time in opposition from 1855 until 1859 he furthered his classical studies before being reappointed to the exchequer in 1859 by the Liberal prime minister Lord Palmerston. During his tenure he abolished import duties, supported the Anglo-French trade treaty and established the Post Office Savings Bank.

He became leader of the Liberal party in 1867 and when the Tory prime minister Disraeli resigned in 1868 Queen Victoria called on him to form a government. His relationship with the monarch was cordial in the early years and Prince Albert’s influence is partly credited for Gladstone’s first appointment as chancellor, however, in later years the Queen complained that he addressed as if she was a public meeting - one of Gladstone’s biographers has suggested this may have been due to his admirable, but in this instance misunderstood trait, to pay everyone ‘…and not least to ladies, the compliment of assuming they are on his own intellectual level'.

His first administration saw made major reforms to the justice system and the civil service and establishing the national elementary school program. He disestablished the Anglican church in Ireland and sought arbitration with the United States over war damages incurred due to British shipping during the civil war. He attempted to reform the system for army commissions. He was defeated in the 1874 election but returned to office in 1880. Whilst in opposition he built a library for himself at Harwarden, known as ‘The Temple of Peace’, it survives undisturbed to this day with the two desks, one for Homeric study the other all other work. In 1876 Queen Victoria reluctantly called on him to form a government once more. He focused on developing Home Rule for Ireland and expanding parliamentary reform. His mishandling of the maverick General Gordon and the Khartoum debacle led Henry Labouchere, later Lord Taunton, to twist the Liberals affectionate acronym for Gladstone - G. O. M. (Grand Old Man) to M. O. G. (Murderer of Gordon).

Returned for a third term in 1885 Gladstone pressed on with his plans for Ireland. The defeat of his bill by thirty votes led Gladstone to resign and call a general election which he lost. He spent the next six years of opposition promoting his belief in home rule for Ireland. The election of 1892 saw Gladstone in power once more as prime minster at the age of 82. Much of his legislation was rejected by the Lords where the Tories held a majority and on his return from a break at Biarritz he resigned. He refused a peerage for the third time and retired to Hawarden where he continued to publish.

A deeply religious man, Gladstone saw his role as a reformer, improving the lives of the British population and the oppressed abroad. He and his wife founded and funded a home for fallen women and he consistently gave over ten percent of his income to charity. He was a lover of poetry and friend of Lord Tennyson. His tastes in art were decidedly pre-Raphaelite being painted by both Watts and Millais. He enjoyed both theatre and opera and was a prodigious writer and collector of books. In 1889 he endowed St. Deiniol’s Library near to Hawarden which flourishes today as a residential Library promoting debate around Gladstone’s values of social, moral and spiritual responsibility.