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Line 2: − + − Born in 1809 in [[Liverpool]] to a well-off merchant family, Gladstone was educated at [[Eton College]] and [[Oxford University]] before entering [[Parliament]] in 1832 as Conservative MP for [[Newark]]. In his early career, Gladstone was regarded as a 'stern and unbending Tory' and a High Anglican. In 1839, he married Catherine Glynne; they remained together until Gladstone’s death 59 years later.+ + + + + + + + +
→Early Life and Tory Minister: add early life, religion
'''William Ewart Gladstone''' (1809–1898) was a British statesman and four-time [[Prime Minister]] (1868–1874, 1880–1885, 1886 and 1892–1894) of the [[British Liberal Party]]. He is best known for his extensive political reforms and skilled oratory. A scholar as well as a politician, he was the primary political rival of [[Benjamin Disraeli]]. Still considered to be one of Britain's greatest Prime Ministers, Gladstone was the inspiration for [[Winston Churchill]] and others.
'''William Ewart Gladstone''' (1809–1898) was a British statesman and four-time [[Prime Minister]] (1868–1874, 1880–1885, 1886 and 1892–1894) of the [[British Liberal Party]]. He is best known for his extensive political reforms and skilled oratory. A scholar as well as a politician, he was the primary political rival of [[Benjamin Disraeli]]. Still considered to be one of Britain's greatest Prime Ministers, Gladstone was the inspiration for [[Winston Churchill]] and others.
==Early Life and Tory Minister==
==Early career to 1868==
Gladstone was born on Dec. 29, 1809, at Liverpool, of Scottish parents. His father, Sir John Gladstone, rose from a humble Scottish origin to be Liverpool's foremost citizen after making a huge fortune in commerce during the Napoleonic wars, based on transatlantic corn and tobacco trade with the United States and on the slave-labour sugar plantations they owned in the West Indies. William was the youngest of four sons. He attended Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. A brilliant student, he learned oratory as well as English literature, history and theology. He was proficient at Greek and Latin, passing at French, poor at mathematics, and ignorant of science. At this time, he began the first of 25,000 diary entries that comprise a remarkable personal record continuing to the week of his death. Gladstone's political genius was recognized at an early age; when he was 22 the Duke of Newcastle, a Conservative party activist, provided him a "rotten borough"<ref>A "rotten borough" was a small district controlled politically by a rich landowner. The Duke spent thousands of pounds entertaining the voters, and Gladstone polled 887 votes. Morley (1901) 1:93; Partridge, (2003) p 32</ref> and he entered Parliament. Gladstone's maiden speech as a young Tory was a defense of the rights of West Indian sugar plantation magnates — slave-owners — among whom his father was prominent.
===Becoming Scottish===
Although a son of Scottish parents, Gladstone was not initially considered a Scot, for he had been born and brought up in England and had only represented English constituencies. Of [[Walter Scott]]'s political admirers, Gladstone was possibly the most ardent, genuine and significant. Scott's poems and novels were among the earliest texts Gladstone read, and were seminal in the formation of his private identity, both individual and familial, including much of his self-concept, his understanding of family, and his sense of home. Scott's works crucially influenced Gladstone's political understanding of the Scottish nation and its people, and his notions of how to best serve their political interests. In 1880, he became the Liberal MP for Midlothian and his election campaigns there gave him a Scottish profile. Consequently he was depicted by cartoonist Tenniel, in ''Punch'', as both a Highlander and "The McGladstone".<ref>Ruth Clayton Windscheffel, "Gladstone and Scott: family, identity and nation," ''Scottish Historical Review'' Volume 86, Number 1: No. 221, April 2007, online at [[Project Muse]]</ref>.
===Religion===
His mother, intensely religious, was an evangelical of Scottish [[Episcopal]] origins,<ref> Partridge, (2003) p 18</ref> and his father joined the [[Church of England]], having been a [[Church of Scotland|Presbyterian]] when he first settled in Liverpool. The boy was baptized into the Church of England. He had previously experienced and ignored, from motives of worldly ambition, a call to enter the Church and become an Anglican priest, and his conscience tormented him for the rest of his life. He made amends by attempting to force his political career into conformity with the pietistic religion in which he fervently believed. In 1838 Gladstone nearly wrecked his career when he tried to force a religious mission upon the Conservative Party. He published a book which argued that the [[State]] had neglected its duty to the Church of England; and he coolly suggested that, as that Church possessed a monopoly of religious truth, Nonconformists and Roman Catholics ought to be excluded from all official employments. The historian [[Thomas Babington Macaulay]] and other critics tore his arguments to shreds, and Sir [[Robert Peel]], Gladstone's chief, was outraged. Peel was greatly attached, however, to his high-minded and extraordinarily good-looking young protégé, and he succeeded in diverting Gladstone's attention from theology to finance.
Gladstone altered his approach to religious problems, which always held first place in his mind. Before entering Parliament he had already substituted a High Church Anglican attitude, with its dependence upon authority and tradition, for the narrow evangelical outlook of his boyhood, with its reliance upon the direct inspiration of the Bible. Now in middle life he decided that the individual conscience would have to replace authority as the inner citadel of the Church. That view of the individual conscience affected his political outlook and changed him gradually from a Conservative into a [[British Liberal Party|Liberal]].
==Parliament==
Gladstone served as President of the Board of Trade (1843-44) during the second ministry of [[Robert Peel]]. He resigned in 1845 over the Maynooth Grant issue, but returned in December as Colonial Secretary. Peel’s government fell in 1846, and Gladstone followed his leader in separation from the [[Conservative Party]]. After Peel’s death in 1850, Gladstone became leader of this ‘Peelite’ faction in the House of Commons.
Gladstone served as President of the Board of Trade (1843-44) during the second ministry of [[Robert Peel]]. He resigned in 1845 over the Maynooth Grant issue, but returned in December as Colonial Secretary. Peel’s government fell in 1846, and Gladstone followed his leader in separation from the [[Conservative Party]]. After Peel’s death in 1850, Gladstone became leader of this ‘Peelite’ faction in the House of Commons.