Gladstone, William Ewart, << YOO uhrt >> (1809-1898), was one of the most respected British political leaders of the 1800’s. He served as prime minister of the United Kingdom four times: from 1868 to 1874, from 1880 to 1885, in 1886, and from 1892 to 1894. As a statesman, Gladstone had boundless energy and, in later life, a strong desire to aid oppressed people. He helped pass many laws that strengthened democratic institutions in the United Kingdom.
Gladstone also had many other interests besides politics. He was a lay leader of the Church of England, and he wrote several books on religion and the culture of ancient Greece.
Gladstone was born in Liverpool, England, on Dec. 29, 1809. He studied at Eton College and Oxford University. In 1832, he was elected to the House of Commons as a member of the Tory Party (later called the Conservative Party). During the 1840’s and 1850’s, Gladstone gradually switched to the Liberal Party. Gladstone served in mixed-party and Liberal cabinets as chancellor of the exchequer, the official who prepares the annual budget.
By 1865, Gladstone had become a brilliant orator and a firm liberal. In that year, he was named leader of the Liberal Party in the Commons. Gladstone helped amend the Conservative government’s Reform Act of 1867 so that it doubled the number of men able to vote in national elections. At that time, the right to vote was limited to adult males who owned property. The act gave the vote to many small farmers and city workers.
Gladstone’s first term as prime minister
began in 1868. He was determined to correct abuses in the administration of Ireland, which was then under British control as part of the United Kingdom. Gladstone sponsored an 1869 act that released the Irish, many of whom were Roman Catholic, from paying taxes to the Church of England. He also pushed through legislation in 1870 that made it harder to evict Irish tenants from the lands they rented. Another important act that year gave England, for the first time, a system of elementary schools open to all children. When the Conservatives, under Benjamin Disraeli, returned to power in 1874, Gladstone resigned as leader of the Liberal Party.
Later political career.
Gladstone ended a temporary retirement in 1879 when he became morally outraged by Disraeli’s foreign and colonial policies. Angered by Ottoman cruelty in the Balkan region of Europe, then controlled by the Ottoman Empire, he attacked Disraeli’s pro-Ottoman policies. In the election of 1880, Gladstone led the Liberals to victory and again became prime minister. In 1882, he ordered a British invasion of Egypt to protect British interests there. In 1884, Gladstone won Parliament’s approval of a reform act that gave the vote to almost all adult males.
The Liberals won the 1885 election, and Gladstone became prime minister for a third time in February 1886. But his term ended in July of that year, after he tried to give Ireland more self-government through his Home Rule Bill. The bill was defeated in the House of Commons and resulted in a deep split in the Liberal Party.
In 1892, Gladstone again became prime minister. He made a final attempt to win home rule for Ireland, but Parliament’s House of Lords defeated his bill. Gladstone retired from office in 1894 and died on May 19, 1898.
