William Ewart Gladstone ( YOO-ərt GLAD-stən; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a four-time prime minister of the United Kingdom. He began in politics as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Newark and ended as the face of the Liberal Party. His four non-consecutive terms — the most of any British prime minister — took place between 1868 and 1894. He also served four times as Chancellor of the Exchequer, five times as Leader of the House of Commons, and MP for over 60 years, from 1832 to 1846 and from 1847 to 1895, representing a total of five constituencies. His political career thus spanned nearly the entire Victorian era.
Gladstone was born in Liverpool to the prominent Scottish merchant and slaveholder Sir John Gladstone. A graduate of Eton and Oxford, Gladstone first entered the House of Commons in 1832 as a High Tory, a grouping that joined the Conservative Party under Sir Robert Peel in 1834. Gladstone served as a minister in both of Peel's governments, and in 1846 joined the breakaway Peelite faction that merged into the new Liberal Party in 1859. He was chancellor under Lord Aberdeen (1852–1855), Lord Palmerston (1859–1865) and Lord Russell (1865–1866). Gladstone's own political doctrine – which promoted equality of opportunity and the repeal of taxes and protectionist trade barriers – came to be known as Gladstonian liberalism.
In 1868, Gladstone became prime minister for the first time. His ministry passed many reforms, including the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and the introduction of secret voting. After electoral defeat in 1874, Gladstone resigned as leader of the Liberal Party. From 1876 he began a comeback based on moral opposition to the Ottoman Empire's massacres of Bulgarians. Gladstone's Midlothian speaking campaign of 1879–1880 is considered the first modern political campaign in Britain, and his popularity among the working class earned him the sobriquet "The People's William". After the 1880 general election, Gladstone returned as party leader and formed his second ministry (1880–1885), which saw the passage of the Third Reform Act as well as crises in Ireland — where his government passed repressive measures but also improved the legal rights of tenant farmers — and Egypt, where public outrage at the death of General Gordon in the Siege of Khartoum forced him to resign.
Gladstone's brief 1886 premiership was dominated by his proposal of home rule for Ireland that was defeated in the House of Commons and caused Liberal Unionists to break from his party. This helped keep the Liberals out of office for 20 years, barring the minority cabinet Gladstone formed in 1892. This time, the Government of Ireland Bill 1893 passed through the Commons but was defeated by a wide margin in the House of Lords. Gladstone resigned in March 1894, aged 84, as the oldest ever prime minister. His successor, Lord Rosebery, was defeated in a landslide in the subsequent year's election. Gladstone left Parliament in 1895 and died three years later.
A powerful orator, Gladstone was called by some the "G.O.M." (to his supporters, the "Grand Old Man"; to his rivals, "God's Only Mistake"). Historians often rank Gladstone as one of the greatest prime ministers in British history. His devoutness, charitable work (particularly with fallen women) and nonfiction texts on subjects ranging from the Oxford Movement to classical civilisation have also attracted attention.
William Ewart Gladstone was born on 29 December 1809 at 62 Rodney Street in Liverpool, the fourth son of Sir John Gladstone, a wealthy Scottish merchant, slave owner, planter and Tory politician; and his second wife, Anne MacKenzie Robertson. He was named after a close friend of his father, William Ewart, another Liverpool merchant and the father of William Ewart, later a Liberal politician. In 1835, the family name was changed from Gladstones to Gladstone by royal licence. His father was made a baronet, of Fasque and Balfour, in 1846.
Although born and raised in Liverpool, William Gladstone was of purely Scottish ancestry. His grandfather Thomas Gladstones was a prominent merchant from Leith, and his maternal grandfather, Andrew Robertson, was Provost of Dingwall and a Sheriff-Substitute of Ross-shire. His biographer John Morley described him as "a highlander in the custody of a lowlander", and an adversary as "an ardent Italian in the custody of a Scotsman". One of his earliest childhood memories was being made to stand on a table and say "Ladies and gentlemen" to the assembled audience, probably at a gathering to promote the election of George Canning as MP for Liverpool in 1812. In 1814, young "Willy" visited Scotland for the first time, as he and his brother John travelled with their father to Edinburgh, Biggar and Dingwall to visit their relatives. Willy and his brother were both made freemen of the burgh of Dingwall. In 1815, Gladstone also travelled to London and Cambridge for the first time with his parents. While in London, he attended a service of thanksgiving with his family at St Paul's Cathedral following the Battle of Waterloo, where he saw the Prince Regent.
William Gladstone was educated from 1816 to 1821 at a preparatory school at the vicarage of St. Thomas' Church at Seaforth, close to his family's residence, Seaforth House. In 1821, William followed in the footsteps of his elder brothers and attended Eton College before matriculating in 1828 at Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Classics and Mathematics, although he had no great interest in the latter subject. In December 1831, he achieved the double first-class degree he had long desired. Gladstone served as President of the Oxford Union, where he developed a reputation as an orator, which followed him into the House of Commons. At university, Gladstone was a Tory and denounced Whig proposals for parliamentary reform in a famous debate at the Oxford Union in May 1831. On the second day of the three-day debate on the Whig Reform Bill Gladstone moved the motion:
That the Ministry has unwisely introduced, and most unscrupulously forwarded, a measure which threatens not only to change the form of our Government, but ultimately to break up the very foundations of social order, as well as materially to forward the views of those who are pursuing the project throughout the civilised world.
Gladstone's 45-minute speech made a great impression on those present and his Amendment carried 94 votes to 38. Among those impressed was Lord Lincoln, who told his father the Duke of Newcastle about it, and it was through this recommendation that the Duke offered Gladstone the safe seat of Newark which he then controlled.
Following the success of his double first, William travelled with his brother John on a Grand Tour of western Europe.
Although Gladstone entered Lincoln's Inn in 1833, with intentions of becoming a barrister, by 1839 he had requested that his name should be removed from the list because he no longer intended to be called to the Bar.
In September 1842 he lost the forefinger of his left hand in an accident while reloading a gun. Thereafter he wore a glove or finger sheath (stall).
When Gladstone was 22 the Duke of Newcastle, a Conservative party activist, provided him with one of two seats at Newark where he controlled about a fourth of the very small electorate. The Duke spent thousands of pounds entertaining the voters. Gladstone displayed remarkably strong technique as a campaigner and stump speaker. He won his seat at the 1832 United Kingdom general election with 887 votes. After new bills to protect child workers were proposed following the publication of the Sadler report, he voted against the 1833 Factory Acts that would regulate the hours of work and welfare of minors employed in cotton mills.
Gladstone was an intense opponent of the opium trade. Referring to the opium trade between British India and Qing China, Gladstone described it as "infamous and atrocious". Gladstone emerged as a fierce critic of the Opium Wars, which Britain waged to re-legalise the British opium trade into China, which had been made illegal by the Chinese government. He publicly lambasted the wars as "Palmerston's Opium War" and said that he felt "in dread of the judgements of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China" in May 1840. A famous speech was made by Gladstone in Parliament against the First Opium War. Gladstone criticised it as "a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this country with permanent disgrace". His hostility to opium stemmed from the effects of opium upon his sister Helen. Before 1841, Gladstone was reluctant to join the Peel government because of the First Opium War, which Palmerston had brought on.