Chartist Meeting – 1848.

1. Chartist Meeting – 1848. “What thoughtful heart can look into this gulf that darkly yawns 'twixt rich and poor, And not find food for saddest meditation!” – Mrs.Gaskell in Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life

2. Victorian Heroes and Victorian Virtues Dr.Duncan and Canon James Nugent Major Lester

3. Generosity of Spirit George Peabody (1795-1869), Joseph Rowntree (1836-1925), John Cadbury (1801-1889) “No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes” - William Ewart Gladstone

4. “Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right” - W.E.Gladstone

5. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King “a selfless man and stainless gentleman…the great pillar of the moral order” – Gladstone’s Arthur “Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to hunt for happiness” – Gladstone.

6. 1865 Gladstone represents South Lancashire “At last, my friends, I am come among you -‘unmuzzled.’” Manchester Free Trade Hall

7. The People’s William

8. 1868 Gladstone Fights the new seat of South West Lancashire “By the time Mr. Gladstone had to speak the crowd had reached 10,000 to 12,000 extending in a compact mass right across Lime Street…a number of fellows on the Conservative side, some of whom if dress is any guide, should have had a little more decency, conceived it to be their duty to put down the speakers on the other side by sheer noise. Blowing horns, singing songs etc were resorted to. No personal violence of any kind was attempted, and placards and lampoons were rare, but witty” –The Times

9. Gladstone’s Plea For Support “And gentlemen, when with all possible respect to my opponents, I ask you to vote for me, I am not asking you merely to give your approval to my personal claims, which are nothing, or to give authority to my opinions, which are of no account – I am asking you to confirm by your suffrages the recoded verdict of the nation. (Cheers). – The Times

10. ….it is the principle of Liberal Government – our principles (Cheers) which have kept the country free from revolution. ….Some persons have said that you need not return me for South Lancashire because I may sit somewhere else. They say that I had better go away (cheers and “No, no!”) from the place where I was born, from the place where I was bred, from the place where my family have been for 90 years, and where they still pursue the honourable commerce of this country. You may just as well say, “I will turn a man out of his proper house because someone else will have the charity to take him in as a beggar or a vagrant.” I don’t, gentlemen, desire to be a parliamentary vagrant. ..My wishes and desire have been true to you as the needle to the pole. I have not spoken a word, I have not drawn a scratch of the pen, to obtain any other seat in Parliament but yours (cheers)…grant the request that I may have not merely a seat in Parliament, but that I may be permitted and enabled to speak the words of truth and justice in the House of Commons, in the name and with the authority of the men of South-West Lancashire (Loud cheering).”

11. William Rathbone VI William Rathbone exposed the conditions in the Liverpool Workhouse, He was one of the founders of Liverpool University and became Liberal MP for Liverpool in Gladstone’s first Government. His grandfather was a close friend of William Roscoe

12. Gladstone caught in sectarian crossfire On November 27th 1868 The Times reported that “Political rivalry had been attended in his case with far more than usual personal animosity, and the Lancashire Tories have fought rather against an enemy than an opponent….Ever since the day Mr.Gladstone made the Irish Church an imminent political question it has been known that his seat was far from safe.”

13. Liverpool Daily Post Reports the result Mr.Cross, 7,729 Mr.Turner, 7,676 Mr.Gladstone, 7,415 Mr.Grenfell, 6,939. Defeat in SW Lancashire Victory in Britain “It is to me a matter of lively satisfaction, which I can never lose, that I received a large majority of votes within the district of Liverpool” - Gladstone

14. Victory in Greenwich and a national swing enabled Gladstone to form his first Government Gladstone's Cabinet of 1868 by Lowes Cato Dickinson

15. Gladstone’s Central Achievements Gladstone “looked up and said with great earnestness in his voice and great intensity in his face, exclaiming: “My mission is to pacify Ireland.” He then resumed his task, and never said another word until the tree was down.”

16. Central Achievements As Chancellor of the Exchequer he presented eleven budgets; Prominent exponent of free trade; Mission to pacify Ireland” ; Promotion of Home Rule and devolution; Confrontation with the unelected House of Lords; Public exams throughout almost all of the civil service; Abolition of university religious tests; An appreciation of self reliance and the role of faith in a secular society; Creation of a recognisably modern political movement; Heroic legislation – inclduing free elementary education and secret ballot; Ability to rouse the conscience of the nation: Embrace of causes that challenged tyranny or injustice and the promotion of national crusades, such as the Midlothian Campaign.

17. Many biographies of Gladstone John Morley (1903) Roy Jenkins (1995) Richard Shannon (2007)

18. Gladstone and his Party He was highly critical of what he described as the new Liberal “pet idea - what they call construction, —that is to say, taking into the hands of the state the business of the individual man". He wrote that Tory Democracy and this new Liberalism had done "much to estrange me, and has done for many, many years."

19. Gladstone and his faith “As to its politics, this country has much less, I think, to fear than to hope; unless through a corruption of its religion – against which, as Conservative or Liberal, I can perhaps say I have striven all my life long.”

20. Gladstone won the respect of the Labour leadership Keir Hardie Arthur Henderson George Lansbury Nonconformists, High Anglicans and Irish Catholics gave him their support

21. Roy Jenkins on Gladstone “Gladstone was, without question, the most remarkable specimen of humanity ever to be in No10 Downing Street.” “When I began writing about him I thought he was a terrible prig. By the time I finished, I thought he was the greatest of our prime Ministers.”

22. Gladstone’s wife on Gladstone “Oh, William dear, if you were not such a very great man, what a bore you would be!”

23. St.Deiniol’s Library and Hawarden Castle Aged 86 Gladstone personally wheeled 30,000 of his books up the hill from the castle to his new library.

24. Queen Victoria on Gladstone He always addresses me as if I were a public meeting.” She remarked to her daughter: “What an incomprehensible old man he is! Old Lord Palmerston was not wrong when he said to me, “he is a very dangerous man.” …not amused

25. Punch contrasted Gladstone’s workmanlike endeavour with Disraeli’s flattery and charm “All the world over, I will back the masses against the classes” - Gladstone.

26. Disraeli on Gladstone “…that unprincipled maniac Gladstone – extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy and superstition.” He said GOM (Grand Old Man) should be read as God’s Only Mistake