Gladstone, William Ewart (1809-1898)

Cartoon from Punch in 1872 depicting Disraeli (front) and Gladstone as two opposing lions making speeches in Lancashire.

English statesman William Ewart Gladstone, depicted here in a 1850s caricature as a member of Parliament and first lord of the treasury.

British Liberal politician William Ewart Gladstone, four times prime minister.

Engraving by William Holl of the Liberal prime minister William Gladstone, after a photograph by John Jabez Edwin Mayall in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Gladstone dominated British politics for much of the second half of the 19th century, an advocate of free trade and domestic reform and a campaigner for Home Rule for Ireland. His rivalry with his Conservative opponent Benjamin Disraeli is often recalled as a golden age of parliament.

British Liberal politician, four times prime minister. He entered Parliament as a Tory in 1833 and held ministerial office, but left the party in 1846 and after 1859 identified himself with the Liberals. He was chancellor of the Exchequer 1852-55 and 1859-66, and prime minister 1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, and 1892-94. He introduced elementary education in 1870 and vote by secret ballot in 1872 and many reforms in Ireland, although he failed in his efforts to get a Home Rule Bill passed.

In Gladstone's first term as prime minister he carried through a series of reforms, including the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, the Irish Land Act, and the abolition of the purchase of army commissions and of religious tests in the universities.

Gladstone strongly resisted Disraeli's imperialist and pro-Turkish policy during his government of 1874-80, not least because of Turkish violence against subject Christians; by his Midlothian campaign of 1879 he helped to overthrow Disraeli. Gladstone's second government carried the second Irish Land Act (1881) and the Reform Act (1884). Returning to office in 1886, Gladstone introduced his first Home Rule Bill, which was defeated, and he thereupon resigned. He formed his last government in 1892; his second Home Rule Bill was rejected by the Lords, and in 1894 he resigned.