Circa 1850-60 William Ewart GLADSTONE signed Envelope to George Alexander Hamilton at the Treasury
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS (/'glædst?n/; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four terms beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894.
He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times, serving over 12 years. Gladstone was born in Liverpool to Scottish parents. He first entered the House of Commons in 1832, beginning his political career as a High Tory, a grouping which became the Conservative Party under Robert Peel in 1834. Gladstone served as a minister in both of Peel's governments, and in 1846 joined the breakaway Peelite faction, which eventually 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 emphasised equality of opportunity and opposition to trade protectionism—came to be known as Gladstonian liberalism. His popularity amongst the working-class earned him the sobriquet "The People's William". In 1868, Gladstone became prime minister for the first time. Many reforms were passed during his first ministry, 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 opposition to the Ottoman Empire's reaction to the Bulgarian April Uprising. His Midlothian Campaign of 1879–80 was an early example of many modern political campaigning techniques.[1][2] After the 1880 general election, Gladstone formed his second ministry (1880–1885), which saw the passage of the Third Reform Act as well as crises in Egypt (culminating in the Fall of Khartoum) and Ireland, where his government passed repressive measures but also improved the legal rights of Irish tenant farmers.
Back in office in early 1886, Gladstone proposed home rule for Ireland but was defeated in the House of Commons. The resulting split in the Liberal Party helped keep them out of office—with one short break—for 20 years. Gladstone formed his last government in 1892, at the age of 82. The Government of Ireland Bill 1893 passed through the Commons but was defeated in the House of Lords in 1893, after which Irish Home Rule became a lesser part of his party's agenda. Gladstone left office in March 1894, aged 84, as both the oldest person to serve as Prime Minister and the only prime minister to have served four terms. He left Parliament in 1895 and died three years later.Gladstone was known affectionately by his supporters as "The People's William" or the "G.O.M." ("Grand Old Man", or, to political rivals "God's Only Mistake").[3] Historians often call him one of Britain's greatest leadersChancellor of the Exchequer (1852–1855)A pensive Gladstone, from the book Great Britain and Her Queen, by Anne E. Keeling In 1852, following the appointment of Lord Aberdeen as Prime Minister, head of a coalition of Whigs and Peelites, Gladstone became Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Whig Sir Charles Wood and the Tory Disraeli had both been perceived to have failed in the office and so this provided Gladstone with a great political opportunity.His first budget in 1853 almost completed the work begun by Peel eleven years before in simplifying Britain's tariff of duties and customs.[50] 123 duties were abolished and 133 duties were reduced.[51] The income tax had legally expired but Gladstone proposed to extend it for seven years to fund tariff reductions:We propose, then, to re-enact it for two years, from April, 1853, to April, 1855, at the rate of 7d. in the £; from April, 1855, to enact it for two more years at 6d. in the £; and then for three years more ... from April, 1857, at 5d. Under this proposal, on 5 April 1860, the income-tax will by law expire.Gladstone wanted to maintain a balance between direct and indirect taxation and to abolish income tax. He knew that its abolition depended on a considerable retrenchment in government expenditure. between the educated and the labouring part of the community" and that therefore the income tax payers and the electorate were to be the same people, who would then vote to cut government expenditure.The budget speech (delivered on 18 April), nearly five hours long, raised Gladstone "at once to the front rank of financiers as of orators".[54] H.C.G. Matthew has written that Gladstone "made finance and figures exciting, and succeeded in constructing budget speeches epic in form and performance, often with lyrical interludes to vary the tension in the Commons as the careful exposition of figures and argument was brought to a climax".[55] The contemporary diarist Charles Greville wrote of Gladstone's speech:... by universal consent it was one of the grandest displays and most able financial statement that ever was heard in the House of Commons; a great scheme, boldly, skilfully, and honestly devised, disdaining popular clamour and pressure from without, and the execution of it absolute perfection. Even those who do not admire the Budget, or who are injured by it, admit the merit of the performance. It has raised Gladstone to a great political elevation, and, what is of far greater consequence than the measure itself, has given the country assurance of a man equal to great political necessities, and fit to lead parties and direct governments.During wartime, he insisted on raising taxes and not borrowing funds to pay for the war. The goal was to turn wealthy Britons against expensive wars. Britain entered the Crimean War in February 1854, and Gladstone introduced his budget on 6 March. Gladstone refused to borrow the money needed to rectify this deficit and instead increased income tax by half, from sevenpence to tenpence-halfpenny in the pound (from 2.92% to 4.38%). Spirits, malt, and sugar were taxed to raise the rest of the money needed.[57] He proclaimed:The expenses of a war are the moral check which it has pleased the Almighty to impose upon the ambition and lust of conquest that are inherent in so many nations ... The necessity of meeting from year to year the expenditure which it entails is a salutary and wholesome check, making them feel what they are about, and making them measure the cost of the benefit upon which they may calculateHe served until 1855, a few weeks into Lord Palmerston's first premiership, and resigned along with the rest of the Peelites after a motion was passed to appoint a committee of inquiry into the conduct of the war.Opposition (1855–1859)The Conservative Leader Lord Derby became Prime Minister in 1858, but Gladstone—who like the other Peelites was still nominally a Conservative—declined a position in his government, opting not to sacrifice his free trade principles.Between November 1858 and February 1859, Gladstone, on behalf of Lord Derby's government, was made Extraordinary Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands embarking via Vienna and Trieste on a twelve-week mission to the southern Adriatic entrusted with complex challenges that had arisen in connection with the future of the British protectorate of the United States of the Ionian Islands.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, prompting Lord Randolph Churchill to observe: "For the purposes of recreation he has selected the felling of trees; and we may usefully remark that his amusements, like his politics, are essentially destructive. Every afternoon the whole world is invited to assist at the crashing fall of some beech or elm or oak. The forest laments in order that Mr Gladstone may perspire."[60] Less noticed at the time was his practice of replacing the trees felled by planting new saplings.Gladstone was a lifelong bibliophile.[61] In his lifetime, he read around 20,000 books, and eventually owned a library of over 32,000.[62] Chancellor of the Exchequer (1859–1866)In 1859, Lord Palmerston formed a new mixed government with Radicals included, and Gladstone again joined the government (with most of the other remaining Peelites) as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to become part of the new Liberal Party. Like Peel, Gladstone dismissed the idea of borrowing to cover the deficit. Gladstone argued that "In time of peace nothing but dire necessity should induce us to borrow".[63] Most of the money needed was acquired through raising the income tax to 9d. Usually not more than two-thirds of a tax imposed could be collected in a financial year so Gladstone therefore imposed the extra four pence at a rate of 8d. during the first half of the year so that he could obtain the additional revenue in one year. Gladstone's dividing line set up in 1853 had been abolished in 1858 but Gladstone revived it, with lower incomes to pay 6½d. instead of 9d. For the first half of the year the lower incomes paid 8d. and the higher incomes paid 13d. in income tax.On 12 September 1859 the Radical MP Richard Cobden visited Gladstone, who recorded it in his diary: "... further conv. with Mr. Cobden on Tariffs & relations with France. We are closely & warmly agreed".[65] Cobden was sent as Britain's representative to the negotiations with France's Michel Chevalier for a free trade treaty between the two countries. Gladstone wrote to Cobden: "... the great aim—the moral and political significance of the act, and its probable and desired fruit in binding the two countries together by interest and affection. Neither you nor I attach for the moment any superlative value to this Treaty for the sake of the extension of British trade. ... What I look to is the social good, the benefit to the relations of the two countries, and the effect on the peace of Europe".Gladstone's budget of 1860 was introduced on 10 February along with the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty between Britain and France that would reduce tariffs between the two countries.[67] This budget "marked the final adoption of the Free Trade principle, that taxation should be levied for Revenue purposes alone, and that every protective, differential, or discriminating duty ... should be dislodged".[68] At the beginning of 1859, there were 419 duties in existence. The 1860 budget reduced the number of duties to 48, with 15 duties constituting the majority of the revenue.In 1860 Gladstone intended to abolish the duty on paper—a controversial policy—because the duty traditionally inflated the cost of publishing and hindered the dissemination of radical working-class ideas. Although Palmerston supported continuation of the duty, using it and income tax revenue to buy arms, 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. No money bill had been rejected by Lords for over 200 years, and a furore arose over this vote. The next year, Gladstone included the abolition of paper duty in a consolidated Finance Bill (the first ever) to force the Lords to accept it, and accept it they did. The proposal in the Commons of one bill only per session for the national finances was a precedent uniformly followed from that date until 1910, and it has been ever since the rule.Gladstone steadily reduced Income tax over the course of his tenure as Chancellor. In 1859 he wrote to his brother, who was a member of the Financial Reform Association at Liverpool: "Economy is the first and great article (economy such as I understand it) in my financial creed. The controversy between direct and indirect taxation holds a minor, though important place".[72] He wrote to his wife on 14 January 1860: "I am certain, from experience, of the immense advantage of strict account-keeping in early life. It is just like learning the grammar then, which when once learned need not be referred to afterwards"Due to his actions as Chancellor, Gladstone earned the reputation as the liberator of British trade and the working man's breakfast table, the man responsible for the emancipation of the popular press from "taxes upon knowledge" and for placing a duty on the succession of the estates of the rich.[75] Gladstone's popularity rested on his taxation policies which meant to his supporters balance, social equity and political justice.[76] The most significant expression of working-class opinion was at Northumberland in 1862 when Gladstone visited. George Holyoake recalled in 1865:When Mr Gladstone visited the North, you well remember when word passed from the newspaper to the workman that it circulated through mines and mills, factories and workshops, and they came out to greet the only British minister who ever gave the English people a right because it was just they should have it ... and when he went down the Tyne, all the country heard how twenty miles of banks were lined with people who came to greet him. Men stood in the blaze of chimneys; the roofs of factories were crowded; colliers came up from the mines; women held up their children on the banks that it might be said in after life that they had seen the Chancellor of the People go by. The river was covered like the land. Every man who could ply an oar pulled up to give Mr Gladstone a Cheer. When Lord Palmerston went to Bradford the streets were still, and working men imposed silence upon themselves. When Mr Gladstone appeared on the Tyne he heard Cheer no other English minister ever heard ... the people were grateful to him, and rough pitmen who never approached a public man before, pressed round his carriage by thousands ... and thousands of arms were stretched out at once, to shake hands with Mr Gladstone as one of themselves.When Gladstone first joined Palmerston's government in 1859, he had opposed further electoral reform, but he changed his position during Palmerston's last premiership, and by 1865 he was firmly in favour of enfranchising the working classes in towns. The policy caused friction with Palmerston, who strongly opposed enfranchisement. At the beginning of each session, Gladstone would passionately urge the Cabinet to adopt new policies, while Palmerston would fixedly stare at a paper before him. At a lull in Gladstone's speech, Palmerston would smile, rap the table with his knuckles, and interject pointedly, "Now, my Lords and gentlemen, let us go to business".[78] Although he personally was not a Nonconformist, and rather disliked them in person, he formed a coalition with the Nonconformists that gave the Liberals a powerful base of supportGeorge Alexander Hamilton (29 August 1802 – 17 September 1871) was a minor British Conservative Party politician and later a prominent civil servant. He was an extremely zealous and active Protestant and a supporter of the Orange Order.
Political career Hamilton was seated as a member of parliament (MP) for Dublin City on 13 April 1835, after a successful election petition. He represented this constituency until he was defeated in the general election of 1837. Hamilton was subsequently elected one of the MPs for Dublin University at a by-election on 10 February 1843 and continued to represent the seat until he resigned in January 1859.He occupied the political post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the first (from 2 March 1852 until 17 December 1852) and second ministries of the Earl of Derby (2 March 1858 to January 1859). Hamilton was appointed Assistant Secretary to the Treasury in 1859 and Permanent Secretary to the Treasury in 1867. These were the most senior civil service posts in the Treasury at that time, and Hamilton continued to serve until 1870. He was made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland on 7 August 1869.BackgroundHamilton was born at Tyrella, Downpatrick, County Down, on 29 August 1802. He was the elder son of the Rev. George Hamilton of Hampton Hall, Balbriggan, County Dublin, who died in March 1833 (first cousin of George Hamilton, the Canadian lumber baron), by Anna, daughter of Thomas Pepper of Ballygarth Castle, County Meath. His grandfather, George Hamilton (d. 1793), who was a Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland) from 1776 to 1793, was a younger brother of Hugh Hamilton, Bishop of Ossory. Hugh's descendants included C.S. Lewis.He was sent to Rugby School in 1814, and matriculated from Trinity College, Oxford, 15 December 1818, took his B.A. degree in 1821, and was created D.C.L. 9 June 1853.MP and civil servantSoon after leaving the university he settled on the paternal estate and began to take a part in the public political meetings in Dublin. At the general election in 1826 he became a candidate for the representation of that city, but after a severe and expensive contest lasting fourteen days was defeated by a small majority. In 1830 and 1832 he again unsuccessfully contested the seat for Dublin. At the close of another election for Dublin in January 1835 the numbers were: O'Connell 2,678, Ruthven 2,630, Hamilton 2,461, West 2,455. A petition was, however, presented; the commissioners sat from 3 May 1835 to 6 January 1836, and from 29 Feb to 26 May, when Hamilton and West were declared duly elected. In the following year, 1837, he again contested Dublin unsuccessfully, and although in presenting a petition he was supported by ‘the Protestants of England,’ and a sum of money known as the Spottiswoode subscription was raised to assist him in paying his expenses, O'Connell on this occasion retained his seat. Throughout his career he took the side of the Orangemen, and was a prominent figure in the Protestant demonstrations. On the formation of the ‘Lay Association for the Protection of Church Property’ in August 1834, he became the honorary secretary of the association, and for a long period worked energetically in the cause. In parliament he was chiefly known as having presented the petition of the celebrated Protestant meeting of 14 January 1837, which gave rise to much discussion and subsequently to the Earl of Roden's committee of inquiry. On 10 February 1843, on the occurrence of a chance vacancy, he was returned by the University of Dublin, which constituency he represented without intermission until February 1859. To him was mainly due the formation of the Conservative Society for Ireland, which formed the rallying point for the conservative party after the passing of the Reform Bill. On 2 June 1845 he spoke on the subject of the 'godless college bill', as the measure which became the Queen's Colleges (Ireland) Act 1845 was popularly known, due to the fact that the three colleges it created could not give instruction in theology. Another speech of 21 August 1848 was printed with the title of 'Education in Ireland. Report of Speech in the House of Commons on Mr. Hamilton's motion on above subject,' 1848. On 21 June 1849 his proposal for an alteration in education in Ireland so as to make it acceptable to the Protestant clergy was lost by 162 to 102 votes. He held the financial secretaryship of the treasury under Lord Derby's administration from March to December 1852, and again on the return of the conservatives to power from March 1858 to January 1859. At this latter date he was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Treasury. He was sworn a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom 7 August 1869, and in the following year was named one of the Commissioners of the Church Temporalities in Ireland. He was a magistrate and Deputy-Lieutenant for Dublin County, and an LL.D. of Dublin University.Private lifeIn his role as local landowner and MP he was, like his father and grandfather, very active in the commercial development of the town of Balbriggan, expanding the harbour facilities and encouraging the development of the local hosiery manufactory. He was chairman of the company that built the Great Northern Railway from Dublin to Belfast. A keen antiquarian, he conducted rescue archaeology on a major passage grave discovered at Gormanston, County Meath, in the course of the building of the railway and wrote reports on this and other archaeological discoveries in the proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society. During the Great Irish famine he chaired the Relief Committee in the Balrothery Union of parishes which provided soup, bread and meal to the starving throughout the North Fingal area.DeathHe died in Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire), Ireland, 17 September 1871 and was buried in St George's church, Balbriggan. Despite his lifelong advocacy of unionism, the last few miles of the journey to his burial was lined by thousands of grieving Roman Catholics and he received a laudatory obituary in the Nationalist Freeman's Journal.
