Abstract
Most politicians grow more conservative and more cautious as time goes by, moving from youthful idealism to varying degrees of pragmatism after years of exposure to public life. Gladstone moved the other way: a ‘stern and unbending’ opponent of the 1832 Reform Bill, he lived to champion the vote for the borough artisans in 1864–67, and to enfranchise the farm labourers in 1884–85. Yet in the aftermath of the repeal of the Corn Laws there was little indication that Peel’s former Colonial Secretary would display a positive attitude towards franchise reform. Far from showing any sympathy for democratic demands, in April 1848 Gladstone volunteered to serve as a special constable when a Chartist uprising was feared in London. Though the feared revolt turned into the so-called Kennington Common ‘fiasco’, Gladstone remained unsympathetic to either franchise reform or political radicalism. As late as 1858–59 he had no contact with the forces representing the backbone of popular liberalism, particularly the Nonconformists. Yet the seeds of his populism had already been sown and were beginning to bear fruit.
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Notes
J. Vincent, The Formation of the British Liberal Party, 1857–68 (1966 and 1972), p. 246.
Though it must not be forgotten that Gladstone’s supporters comprised a broader cross-section of society, including High and ‘broad’ Churchmen, Roman Catholic, Evangelical Nonconformists, Nonconformists who were neither Evangelical nor ‘orthodox’ (the Unitarians), and indeed militant secularists — cf. E. Royle, Radicals, Republicans and Secularists (1980). On the other hand, it is also important to remember that many Evangelical Anglicans tended to vote Conservative, especially after 1886.
Revd R. Heber Newton, as quoted in G. Brooks, Gladstonian Liberalism: In Idea and In Fact. Being An Account, Historical and Critical of the Second Administration of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., from April 29th, 1880, to June 25th, 1885 (1885), pp. 24–5.
H. C. G. Matthew, ‘Gladstone, Rhetoric and Politics’, in P. J. Jagger (ed.), Gladstone (1998), pp. 235–54.
Hamilton, Mr Gladstone. A Monograph, pp. 5–6.
W. Freer, My Life’s Memories (1929), pp. 53–4.
M. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (1902), vol. ii, p. 308.
Brooks, Gladstonian Liberalism, pp. 23–4. The (?) is in the text. On the power of Gladstone’s leadership see P. F. Clarke, A Question of Leadership. Gladstone to Thatcher (1991), pp. 11–42.
For Parnell’s social conservatism and aristocratic outlook cf. L. Kennedy, ‘The economic thought of the nation’s lost leader’, in D. G. Boyce and A. O’Day (eds), Parnell in Perspective (1991), pp. 171–200.
Cit. in D. M. Schreuder, ‘ The making of Mr Gladstone’s posthumous career: the role of Morley and Knaplund as “Monumental Masons”, 1903–27’, in B. L. Kinzer (ed.), The Gladstonian Turn of Mind (1985), p. 236.
Cf. E. F. Biagini, ‘Virtue and Victorianism. The Republican Values of British Liberalism, c. 1860–1890’, in M. Viroli (ed.), The Republican Tradition (forthcoming).
J. L. Hammond, Gladstone and the Irish Nation (1938), p. 711.
T. P. O’Connor, Gladstone’s House of Commons (1885), entry for 10 March 1883, cit. in C. Silvester, The Literary Companion to Parliament (1996), p. 388.
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© 2000 Eugenio F. Biagini
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Biagini, E.F. (2000). The Charismatic Leader. In: Gladstone. British History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-87867-3_5
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