» William Gladstone
The real william gladstone was a prime minister of england in the late 19th century. A liberal, he was the political opponent of Benjamin Disraeli.
Born in Liverpool, England at 62 Rodney Street in 1809, William Ewart Gladstone was the fourth son of the merchant Sir John Gladstones and his second wife, Anne MacKenzie Robertson. Although Gladstone was born and brought up in Liverpool and always retained a slight Lancashire accent, he was of Scottish descent on both his mother's and father's side of the family.
Gladstone was educated at Eton College, and in 1828 matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford where he took Classics and Mathematics in order to obtain a double first class degree despite the fact that he had no great interest in mathematics. In December 1831 after sitting for his final examinations, he learned that he had indeed achieved the double first he had long desired. Gladstone served as President of the Oxford Union debating society, where he developed a reputation as a fine orator, a reputation that later followed him into the House of Commons. At university Gladstone was a Tory and denounced Whig proposals for parliamentary reform.
He was first elected to Parliament in 1832 as Conservative MP for Newark. Initially he was a disciple of High Toryism, opposing the abolition of slavery and factory legislation. In 1838 he published a book, The State in its Relations with the Church, which argued that the goal of the state should be to promote and defend the interests of the Church of England. In 1839, he married Catherine Glynne, to whom he remained married until his death 59 years later.
In 1840, Gladstone began to rescue and rehabilitate London prostitutes, actually walking the streets of London himself and encouraging the women he encountered to change their ways. He continued this practice even after he'd been elected Prime Minister decades later.
Gladstone was re-elected in 1841. 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). In the second ministry of Robert Peel, he served as President of the Board of Trade (1843–44). He resigned in 1845 over the Maynooth Seminary issue, a matter of conscience for him. In order to improve relations with Irish Catholics, Peel's government had proposed increasing the annual grant paid to the Seminary for training Catholic priests. Gladstone, who had previously argued in a book that a Protestant country should not pay money to other churches, supported the increase in the Maynooth grant and voted for it in Commons, but resigned rather than face charges that he'd compromised his principles to remain in office.
Gladstone returned to Peel's government as Colonial Secretary in December. The following year, Peel's government fell over the PM's repeal of the Corn Laws and Gladstone followed his leader into a course of separation from mainstream Conservatives. After Peel's death in 1850, Gladstone emerged as the leader of the Peelites in the House of Commons.
As Chancellor he pushed to extend the free trade liberalisations in the 1840s and worked to reduce public expenditures, policies that, when combined with his moral and religious ideals, became known as "Gladstonian Liberalism". He was re-elected for the University of Oxford in 1847 and became a constant critic of Lord Palmerston.
In May 1849 he began his most active "rescue work" with "fallen women" and met prostitutes late at night on the street, in his house, or in their houses, writing their names in a private notebook. He aided the House of Mercy at Clewer near Windsor (which exercised extreme in-house discipline) and spent much time arranging employment for ex-prostitutes.
After visiting Naples in 1850, Gladstone began to support Neapolitan opponents of the Bourbon rulers. In 1852, following the ascendance of Lord Aberdeen, as premier, head of a coalition of Whigs and Peelites, Gladstone became Chancellor of the Exchequer and unsuccessfully tried to abolish the income tax. Instead he ended up raising it because of the Crimean War. He served until 1855. Lord Stanley became Prime Minister in 1858, but Gladstone declined a position in his government, opting not to work with Benjamin Disraeli, then Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. In 1859, Lord Palmerston formed a new mixed government with Radicals included, and Gladstone again joined the government as Chancellor of the Exchequer, leaving the Conservatives to become part of the new Liberal Party.
During consideration of his Budget for 1860, it was generally assumed that Gladstone would use the budget's surplus of £5 million to abolish the income tax, as in 1853 he had promised to do this before the decade was out. Instead, Gladstone proposed to increase it and use the additional revenue to abolish duties on paper, a controversial policy because the duties had traditionally inflated the costs of publishing and disseminating radical working-class ideas. Although Palmerston supported continuation of the duties, using them and income tax revenues to make armament purchases, a majority of his Cabinet supported Gladstone. The Bill to abolish duties on paper narrowly passed Commons but was rejected by the House of Lords. As no money bill had been rejected by Lords for over two hundred years, a furore arose over this vote. The next year, Gladstone included the abolition of paper duties in a Finance Bill in order to force the Lords to accept it, and accept it they did.
As Chancellor, Gladstone made a controversial speech at Newcastle on 7 October 1862 in which he supported the independence of the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. Great Britain was officially neutral at the time, and Gladstone later regretted the Newcastle speech. In May 1864 Gladstone said that he saw no reason in principle why all mentally able men could not be enfranchised, but admitted that this would only come about once the working-classes themselves showed more interest in the subject. Queen Victoria was not pleased with this statement, and an outraged Palmerston considered it seditious incitement to agitation.
Gladstone's support for electoral reform and disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Ireland had alienated him from his constituents in his Oxford University seat, and he lost it in the 1865 general election. Palmerston campaigned for Gladstone in Oxford because he believed that his constituents would keep him "partially muzzled". A victorious Gladstone told his new constituency, "At last, my friends, I am come among you; and I am come—to use an expression which has become very famous and is not likely to be forgotten—I am come 'unmuzzled'."
In 1858 Gladstone took up the hobby of tree felling, mostly of oak trees, an exercise he continued with enthusiasm until he was 81 in 1891. Eventually, he became notorious for this activity. Less noticed at the time was his practice of replacing the trees he'd felled with newly-planted saplings.
Source: Wikipedia