William Gladstone

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William Gladstone

William Gladstone.Portrait.jpg

Name William Ewart Gladstone (29 December, 1809- 19 May, 1898)
Nicknames The Grand Old Man/G.O.M. (supporters & satirists), The People's William (supporters), Arch Villain/A.V. (Disraeli), Mr. Tipple (Eton classmates)
Politics
Party Liberal (1859 onwards)
Peelite (1846-1859)
Tory/Conservative (up to 1846)
Constituency Midlothian (1880-1895)
Greenwich (1868-1880)
S. Lancashire (1865-1868)
Oxford University (1847-1865)
Newark (1832-1845)
Positions • Prime Minister (1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886, 1892-1894)
• Chancellor of the Exchequer (1852-1855, 1859-1866,1873-1874, 1880-1882)
• Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (1845)
• President of the Board of Trade (1843-1845)
Likes Tree-felling, Tractarianism, books, "rescuing" prostitutes
Dislikes Tariffs, birth control, the opium trade, family/friends converting to Roman Catholicism
Friends Robert Peel, John Morley, Henry Edward Manning & James Hope (before 1851), Arthur Henry Hallam (1824-1829)
Enemies Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Palmerston, Joseph Chamberlain
Relationships
Partners Catherine Gladstone (m. 1839 - his death)
Unsuccessfully attempted to court Caroline Farquhar (1835-1836) and Lady Frances Douglas (1837-1838) and was rejected by both of them and their families.
Children William Henry (1840), Agnes (1842), Stephen (1844), Catherine (1845), Mary (1847), Helen (1849), Henry (1852), Herbert (1854)
Personal Attributes
Nationality English, of purely Scottish descent
Religion High Church Anglican
Sexuality Straight
Height 5' 10.5"
Eye Colour Brown
Handedness ?
Accent Impossible to say for sure, but contemporary reports indicate his accent had noticeable Lancashire features to it. (Accounts of Gladstone being a Scouser due to his Liverpudlian origins are incorrect, as the Scouse accent didn't exist until much later in the 19th century.)
Languages English, French, Italian, Latin, (Ancient) Greek

Wild agitator, means well.~ Lewis Carroll's stunningly accurate anagram

A sophisticated rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and glorify himself.~ Benjamin Disraeli

The Grand Old Man himself, William Ewart Gladstone was an MP for over 60 years, and was a colossal figure for nearly all of it, first as a Tory, then as a member of the Peelite faction, and then finally as a Liberal. The only man to have been Prime Minister four times, he was also famous for his successes as Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as for his skills as an orator and campaigner. On the less noble side of things, he was also infamous for his fanatical drive and short temper, his religious devotion and obsession with his own sinfulness, his controversial missions to 'rescue' prostitutes (& subsequent self-flagellation to counter temptation), his long-running rivalry with Benjamin Disraeli, and his ultimately politically fatal attempt to bring Home Rule to Ireland at any cost.

Life and Career[edit | edit source]

Early Life[edit | edit source]

William Ewart Gladstone was born in Liverpool in 1809 to a prosperous upper-middle class businessman, John Gladstone, and his sickly second wife, Anne. He was the fifth of six children, the others being Anne (born 1802), Tom, Robertson (born 1805), John, and Helen (born 1814). The family was full of strong-willed individuals, some to an almost dangerous degree, as was the case for some of William's siblings in adulthood. John was a very upwardly-mobile man, having essentially paid his way into the House of Commons by sitting for a series of rotten boroughs until he was unseated from Berwick-on-Tweed by petition in 1827. All of his sons more or less had their futures planned out in advance by him, but they varied considerably in their adherence to his wishes, with Tom and William being the only two to successfully graduate from both Eton and Oxford. (Tom went on to become a minor backbench MP, lacking the talent and drive of his younger brother; of the other two sons, Robertson went into business and radical politics in Liverpool, eventually becoming its mayor, while John embarked on a naval career before later becoming a Conservative MP and High Sheriff for Wiltshire)

While the sons were pushed into the fast-paced world of business and politics, the daughters were left to become paragons of feminine religiousity, purity, and submissive virtue--this suited the mother as well as her oldest daughter, as both were sickly and pious to begin with, but the youngest daughter, Helen, was of a more rebellious nature, having a personality closer to those of her brothers. Of all his siblings William was perhaps closest to her, at least as of the 1820s and early 1830s, but her erratic behaviour in adulthood would later strain both their relationship and the relationship of the family as a whole.

Entry into the world of politics started very early for young William Ewart; one of his earliest memories was of being dressed in a red frock and made to stand on a chair at a dinner table and say 'Ladies and Gentlemen!' to the assembled guests, including George Canning. He was two years old at the time. He was taken around and introduced to many figures in Tory circles as a child, and the Gladstones also occasionally travelled to London for the Parliamentary season. William was taken to many parts of England and Scotland by his father, which gave him a broader exposure to more parts of Great Britain than would be typical for a young boy, though as railways had not been invented yet, the travel was entirely by coach, which nearly always resulted in him getting sick. (This propensity towards motion sickness also characterised nearly all of Gladstone's experiences with travel by boat in adulthood.)

At Eton and Oxford[edit | edit source]

In 1821, William was sent to Eton. While the school still had a similar degree of renown to what it possesses today, its educational curriculum and overall structure in that era was extremely disorganised, and boys were more or less left to their own devices in terms of what they got out of their time there. While other prime ministers like Lord Salisbury had been bullied and miserable at Eton, Gladstone seems to have flourished, and joined a number of extracurricular groups and made a number of friends.

Pre-political Career[edit | edit source]

Early Political Career[edit | edit source]

Parliamentary Career[edit | edit source]

Full List of Appointments
• Under-secretary of State for War and the Colonies (1835)
• Vice-President of the Board of Trade (1841-1843)
• President of the Board of Trade (1843-1845)
• Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (1845)
• Chancellor of the Exchequer (1852-1855, 1859-1866, 1873-1874, 1880-1882)
• Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands (1858-1859)
• Leader of the House of Commons (1865-1866, 1880-1885, 1886, 1892-1894)
• Prime Minister (1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886, 1892-1894)
• Lord Privy Seal (1886, 1892-1894)
Greatest Moments
Date Summary Video Transcript
18/12/1888 Gladstone's only YouTubed great moment, on account of living in an era before recording equipment. "The request, that you have done me the honour to make - to receive the record of my voice - is one that I cheerfully comply with so far as it lies in my power... All I see is that wonders upon wonders are opening before us." (Full transcript here)

Personal Life[edit | edit source]

Kept a masturbation diary because why not?

On the 1982 election campaign he got hit in the eye by a piece of gingerbread thrown from a crowd and nearly went blind[1].

Sexuality/Appearance/Ideology[edit | edit source]

Portrayal[edit | edit source]

In the Media[edit | edit source]

In Culture[edit | edit source]

Gladstone's jokes are no laughing matter.~ Lord Derby

Either one of the greatest Prime Ministers we've ever had or just a really, really grumpy guy.

In Fanon[edit | edit source]

The Victorian Gordon Brown.

Shipping[edit | edit source]

Shipped with Benjamin Disraeli because come on. This ship is known as Dizzystone.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. The Times, 27 June, 1892 (via http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32537203)