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21 unusual facts about William Ewart Gladstone


Arthur West Haddan

In 1847 Haddan was one of the secretaries of William Ewart Gladstone's election committee, and supported him on the three other occasions when he sought election as a Member of Parliament for the University of Oxford; his support.

Bartimaeus Sequence

The novels are set in London in an alternate history, though many countries, cities, events, and people are from actual history (such as Prague, Solomon, the Holy Roman Empire, William Ewart Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, the American Revolution, etc.).

District Railway

On Saturday 1 July 1871, an opening banquet was attended by the Prime Minister William Gladstone, who was also a shareholder.

Edward Craigie

As one commentator noted after his death "He would have been an influential contributor to William Ewart Gladstone's last ministry; he was out of time and place in South Australia."

Georg Holtzendorff

His main work was the decoration of the Gladstone Dessert Service, presented by the Liberal Working Men of Derby to Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone in 1883.

Georgina Battiscombe

Her best known books were biographies of the Victorian romantic novelist Charlotte Mary Yonge (1943); Catherine Gladstone, the wife of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1956); English churchman John Keble (1963); and Alexandra of Denmark (1969).

Gladstone Parish, New Brunswick

Sunbury Parish set off from Blissville Parish in 1874 and named for the Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, (1809-1898), prime minister of England.

Gladstone, New Zealand

It was named after British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.

Gladstone, North Dakota

It was named for British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.

History of the United States Senate

Sir Henry Maine called the Senate "the only thoroughly successful institution which has been established since the tide of modern democracy began to run." William Ewart Gladstone said the Senate was "the most remarkable of all the inventions of modern politics." (Ibid, 23)

James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn

In 1866, he was appointed Viceroy of Ireland, and two years later was created Marquess of Hamilton (in the Peerage of the United Kingdom) and Duke of Abercorn (in the Peerage of Ireland), resigning shortly after Gladstone won the 1868 general election.

Liberal Imperialists

The Liberal Imperialists believed that under the leadership of William Ewart Gladstone the Liberal Party had succumbed to "faddists", sectional interests and the "Celtic fringe" which prevented it from being a truly national party.

Mary Benson

She was described by Gladstone, the British Prime Minister, as the 'cleverest woman in Europe'.

Parliament Act 1911

For example, Irish Disestablishment, which had been a major bone of contention between the two main parties since the 1830s, was—following intervention by the Queen—passed by the Lords in 1869 after W.E. Gladstone won the 1868 Election on the issue.

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross

The nursery rhyme was very popular before the twentieth century, it was sung every day by William Ewart Gladstone to his children as they had "rides on his foot, slung over his knee".

Robert Pearsall Smith

The following year, after preaching in front of royalty and taking breakfast with Gladstone they travelled to Germany and Switzerland, where they preached in several major cities.

Salem Ramaswami Mudaliar

Ramaswami halted at Edinburgh on way to Aberdeen to listen to the speech of the liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone while he regarded the speech given by John Bright at Birmingham as the best he had ever listened to in life.

Sir Albert Gladstone, 5th Baronet

Gladstone was born at Hawarden Castle, Flintshire, Wales, the eldest son of the Reverend Stephen Edward Gladstone and Annie Crosthwaite Wilson, and the grandson of the former Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone.

South Hill Park

In the grounds of South Hill Park a plaque records the planting of a tree by William Ewart Gladstone in 1893.

The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance

The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance is an anti-Catholic pamphlet written by British politician William Ewart Gladstone in November 1874.

Working Men's Club and Institute Union

Sometimes Liberal Clubs were called Gladstone Clubs in honour of the Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.


Arthur Wrottesley, 3rd Baron Wrottesley

He took his seat in the House of Lords on his father's death in 1867 and two years later he was appointed a Lord-in-Waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) in the first Liberal administration of William Ewart Gladstone.

Baron Heneage

He was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster under William Ewart Gladstone between February and April 1886, when he broke with Gladstone over Irish Home Rule.

Cat lady

Florence Nightingale had many cats named after famous public figures such as Gladstone and Bismarck.

Dilke baronets

He was also a Liberal politician and served under William Ewart Gladstone as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1880 to 1882 and as President of the Local Government Board from 1882 to 1885.

Earl of Ilchester

His nephew, the fifth Earl, was Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms from 1873 to 1874 in the Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone and also served as Lord Lieutenant of Dorset from 1885 to 1905.

Edmund Wright Brooks

He stood for Parliament in the Essex, South East constituency, at the General Election of 1892 as a Gladstonian Liberal, against the sitting Conservative MP, Major F C Rasch.

Ethel Sands

The wealthy Sands circulated amongst London society, including writer and statesman John Morley, politician William Ewart Gladstone, writer Henry James, artist John Singer Sargent, the Rothschild family, and Henry Graham White.

Frederick Methuen, 2nd Baron Methuen

He succeeded his father in the barony in 1849 and served as a Lord-in-Waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) under Lord Palmerston and later Lord Russell between 1859 and 1866 and under William Ewart Gladstone from 1868 to 1874, 1880 to 1885 and in 1886.

Glasgow City Halls

It was the first hall suitable for large gatherings and concerts to be built in the City and played host to the likes of Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens, Hungarian patriot Lajos Kossuth and William Ewart Gladstone.

Grillion's

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many leading statesmen belonged to the club, including prime ministers Gladstone, Salisbury, Balfour, Asquith, and Baldwin.

Hawarden Kite

The Hawarden Kite was a famous British scoop of 1885, an apparent instance of flying a kite, when Herbert Gladstone, son of the then Leader of the Opposition William Ewart Gladstone revealed to Edmund Rogers of the National Press Agency in London that his father now supported home rule for Ireland.

Ignaz von Döllinger

In 1842 he entered into correspondence with the leaders of the Tractarian movement in England, and some interesting letters have been preserved which were exchanged between him and Edward Pusey, William Ewart Gladstone and James Hope-Scott.

John O'Hagan

After Gladstone had passed his Irish Land Act, he chose O'Hagan as the first judicial head of the Irish Land Commission, making him for this purpose a judge of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice.

John Warren, 3rd Baron de Tabley

He at once disclosed his identity, and received the congratulations of his friends, among whom were Tennyson, Browning and Gladstone.

Lady Cynthia Colville

Lady Sibyl died young, and her children lived for a time with their unmarried uncle the 3rd Baron Crewe, rejoining their father, a Liberal politician, when he was posted to Dublin as Gladstone's Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (from 1892–95).

Numa Edward Hartog

Within weeks, Solicitor-General John Coleridge of the Gladstone government introduced legislation to rectify the situation.

Peter Gladstone

He was the great grandson of the Liberal prime minister William Ewart Gladstone, and brother of Sir William Gladstone, 7th Baronet.

Philippa Fawcett

She was the daughter of the suffragist Millicent Fawcett and of Henry Fawcett MP, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge and Postmaster General in Gladstone's government.

Robert Archibald Armstrong

Lord Derby advised her majesty to cheer the last days of the veteran scholar by a grant of £100 from the Royal Bounty Fund; and in 1869 Queen Victoria, on the recommendation of Prime Minister Gladstone, granted an annual pension of £50 to his widow.

Royal Literary Fund

Throughout the nineteenth century and until 1939 much of the charity's money came from an annual fund-raising dinner at which major public and literary figures (including Gladstone, Lord Palmerston, Dr Livingstone, Stanley Baldwin, Charles Dickens, Thackeray, Robert Browning, J. M. Barrie and Rudyard Kipling) exhorted guests to make generous donations.

Sir Thomas Bazley, 1st Baronet

In 1869 he was created a baronet "of Hatherop in the County of Gloucester" for his services to public life and the cotton industry on the advice of the Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone.

United Kingdom general election, 1880

At the culmination of the Midlothian campaign, the Liberals, led by the fierce oratory of retired former Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone in attacking the supposedly immoral foreign policy of the Disraeli government, secured one of their largest ever majorities in the election, leaving the Conservatives a distant second.