This section is from "The American Cyclopaedia", by George Ripley And Charles A. Dana. Also available from Amazon: The New American Cyclopędia. 16 volumes complete..
William Ewart Gladstone, a British statesman, born in Liverpool, Dec. 29, 1809. He is the fourth son of Sir John Gladstone, a wealthy merchant, who relinquished a small business in Glasgow about 1785, and removed to Liverpool, where he acquired a large fortune in the West India trade, and was created a baronet in 1846. The son was sent to Eton, and while there gave full promise of the special brilliancy which marked his course at Oxford, where he graduated at Christchurch in 1831, as double first class, the highest honor, and one rarely attained, and became a fellow of All Souls'. After travelling for a short period, he entered parliament in December, 1832, as member for Newark, a nomination borough belonging to the duke of Newcastle, which he continued to represent till 1846. In December, 1834, he was appointed by Sir Robert Peel a junior lord of the treasury, and in 1835 under secretary for colonial affairs, which office he filled for only two months, when the ministry was overthrown. He continued a useful and active as well as brilliant member of the opposition party led by Sir Robert Peel until that statesman's return to power in 1841, when he was sworn a member of the privy council and appointed vice president of the board of trade and master of the mint.
In this position he explained and defended in parliament the commercial policy of the government, and the revision of the British tariff in 1842 was almost entirely his work. He was a constant contributor to the Quarterly Review," chiefly on literary and ecclesiastical subjects. He also published in 1838 a work on church and state, in which he maintained extreme high-church views, and which was severely criticised by Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review." In May, 1843, he succeeded Lord Ripon as president of the board of trade, but in February, 1845, he resigned his offices on the introduction of the measure for the increase of the May-nooth grant, which was directly opposed in principle to the opinions he had expressed in his work on church and state. In November, 1845, Sir Robert Peel resigned, but, on the failure of Lord John Russell to form a government, he was recalled and reconstructed his cabinet, Mr. Gladstone becoming secretary for the colonies. In the free-trade measure announced by Sir Robert Peel in January, 1846, Mr. Gladstone fully concurred; but being unwilling to remain under obligations to the duke of Newcastle, he resigned his seat for Newark, and was out of parliament during the debates on this measure.
At the general election of 1847 he was chosen to represent the university of Oxford, and one of his first speeches in parliament was in favor of the bill for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews, which he had opposed in 1841. His speech against the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston in the Don Pacifico debates was generally regarded as one of the most admirable pieces of English eloquence of recent times. In the ministerial crisis of 1852 he was invited by Lord Derby to enter his cabinet, but declined, and on the overthrow of that minister in December of the same year accepted the office of chancellor of the exchequer under the earl of Aberdeen. While holding this office he introduced in 1853 his celebrated budget in a remarkable series of addresses which were pronounced by Lord John Russell to contain the ablest expositions of the true principles of finance ever delivered by an English statesman." On the resignation of Lord Aberdeen in February, 1855, and the elevation of Lord Palmerston to the premiership, Mr. Gladstone retained his office of chancellor of the exchequer; but he soon resigned, together with the other Peelite members of the government, in consequence of Lord Palmer-ston's refusing to oppose a motion of inquiry into the conduct of the Crimean war, which was considered indirectly to convey a censure on the duke of Newcastle and Mr. Sidney Herbert. On the overthrow of Lord Palmerston's government and the second accession of Lord Derby to power in 1858, Mr. Gladstone again declined the pressing overtures of that nobleman, but in November accepted an appointment as lord high commissioner extraordinary to the Ionian islands.
In 1859, on Lord Palmerston's return to office, Mr. Gladstone again became chancellor of the exchequer. He was chiefly instrumental in procuring the repeal of the duty on, paper, and the ratification of the commercial treaty between England and France, negotiated by Mr. Cobden and M. Chevalier. From this time Mr. Gladstone has been classed as an advanced liberal. He also during the few succeeding years exhibited a theoretical knowledge and a practical skill in the management of the national finances that excited the admiration of all Europe. At the general election of 1865 he was rejected by the university of Oxford, but was returned for South Lancashire. After the death of Lord Palmerston in the same year, Mr. Gladstone became the leader of the house of commons. He procured the adoption of the measures recommended by the ministry for the suppression of the Fenian disturbances in Ireland, but a reform bill introduced by him on behalf of the ministry was defeated, and he and his colleagues resigned, and were succeeded by one formed by Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, July 6, 1866. In the early part of the session of 1868 Mr. Gladstone introduced a series of resolutions in favor of the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish church.
Soon after a bill for effecting this object was passed by the commons, but rejected by the peers. In the general election of that year Mr. Gladstone was defeated as a candidate for Southwest Lancashire after an exciting contest, but was returned by a large majority by the borough of Greenwich. Mr. Disraeli's ministry resigned in December, and Mr. Gladstone succeeded him as premier. The Irish church bill was passed at the session of 1869, the Irish land act in 1870, and the purchase of commissions in the army was abolished in 1871 by the exercise of the royal prerogative. He also procured the abolition of confiscation in English penal law. During the war between France and Germany the English government, under the lead of Mr. Gladstone, maintained a complete neutrality, and in order to avoid all complications with the great powers of the continent reluctantly consented to the abrogation of those provisions of the treaty of 1856 with Russia which established the neutrality of the Black sea. Under his administration the treaty of Washington, by which the matters in dispute between the United States and Great Britain were settled, was negotiated and carried into effect.
At the session of 1873 Mr. Gladstone introduced an elaborate bill for the reform of university education in Ireland, the main object of which was the establishment of a system which should be acceptable to both Protestants and Catholics. The discussion in the house of commons made it clear that the bill satisfied neither, and it was defeated. Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues immediately resigned. The queen called upon Mr. Disraeli to form a new ministry, but after some days he announced to the house that he was unable, and if not unable unwilling, to do so, and declared that he did not regard the defeat of the university bill as exhibiting such a want of confidence in the general conduct of the government as required the resignation of the ministry. Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues accordingly returned to their posts; but repeated defeats of the ministry followed, and on Jan. 24, 1874, Gladstone unexpectedly issued an address announcing the dissolution of parliament, assigning as a reason for the step that the government felt its power was ebbing. He promised a diminution of local taxation and the abolition of the income tax.
The succeeding elections for a new parliament resulted in the return of 351 conservatives and 302 liberals, a conservative majority of 49, against a liberal majority of 112 in that of 1868. Mr. Gladstone himself was returned from Greenwich by a vote of 5,968, against 6,386 in 1868. On Feb. 17 he resigned, and on the following day Mr. Disraeli accepted the premiership.-Mr. Gladstone's published works are: "The State in its Relations with the Church" (2 vols., 1838);Church Principles Considered(1840);
"Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age" (3 vols., Oxford, 1858);Essays on Ecce Homo." and a pamphlet on the Irish church question, entitled "A Chapter of Autobiography(1868); and " Juventus Mundi: the Gods and Men of the Heroic Age (1869). He has supervised a translation of Farinas Stato Romano (4 vols., London, 1859). In 1851 he published a Letter to Lord Aberdeen on the cruelties inflicted on the political prisoners confined in the dungeons of Naples, which produced a universal and very deep impression. His statue, by Adams Acton, was unveiled in Liverpool on Sept. 11, 1870.
 
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