Premiership of William Gladstone

Infobox Prime Minister
name =The Rt Hon William Gladstone
small

order =Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
term_start =15 August 1892
term_end =2 March 1894
monarch =Victoria
predecessor =The Marquess of Salisbury
successor =The Earl of Rosebery
term_start2 =1 February 1886
term_end2 =20 July 1886
monarch2 =Victoria
predecessor2 =The Marquess of Salisbury
successor2 =The Marquess of Salisbury
term_start3 =23 April 1880
term_end3 =9 June 1885
monarch3 =Victoria
predecessor3 =The Earl of Beaconsfield
successor3 =The Marquess of Salisbury
term_start4 =3 December 1868
term_end4 =17 February 1874
monarch4 =Victoria
predecessor4 =Benjamin Disraeli
successor4 =Benjamin Disraeli
birth_date =29 December 1809
birth_place =Liverpool, England
death_date =19 May 1898 (age 88)
death_place =Hawarden Castle, Flintshire, Wales
alma_mater =Christ Church, Oxford
party =Liberal
religion =Church of England (High Church)|
William Gladstone was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on four separate occasions between 1868 and 1894.

During the Christmas of 1867 The Earl Russell announced that he would not lead the Liberal Party at the next general election and so Gladstone succeeded him as Liberal Party leader. The resulting general election of 1868 (the first under the extended franchise enacted in the Reform Act 1867) returned a Liberal majority of 112 seats in the House of Commons.

First government (1868 - 1874)

The first major reform Gladstone undertook was the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland as embodied in the Irish Church Disestablishment Act 1869. This was followed by the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 which attempted to protect Irish tenants from unfair treatment from landlords by loaning public money to tenants to enable them to buy their holdings. Also, the Act limited landlords' powers to arbitrarily evict their tenants and established compensation for eviction, which varied according to the size of holdings and was not eligible for those evicted for failing to pay rents. [Sir Llewellyn Woodward, "The Age of Reform, 1815-1870. Second Edition" (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 362.]

Gladstone's government also passed the Elementary Education Act 1870 which established a system of elective school boards which were founded to provide education where there were no voluntary schools. These boards had the power to levy rates and from which construct schools, employ teachers, and the ability to force children to attend (if they thought fit) those who were receiving no other education. They were also able to pay certain children's fees for voluntary schools. [Philip Magnus, "Gladstone. A Biography" (London: John Murray, 1963), p. 204.]

In 1871 Gladstone's government passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which outlawed picketing with three months' hard labour in prison as punishment. [William Edward Hartpole Lecky, "Democracy and Liberty: Volume II" (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981), pp. 376-7.] The Ballot Act 1872 was also passed, which established secret ballots for general and local elections.

The Licensing Act 1872 restricted the opening hours in public houses; regulated the content of beer; gave local authorities the power to determine licensing hours and gave boroughs the option of banning all alcohol. These policies were enforced by the police. This Act was generally unpopular and led to rioting in some towns. [R. C. K. Ensor, "England, 1870-1914" (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 21.] The liquor industry had Liberal leanings before the Act but now this totally changed, and from "midsummer 1871 [when the first Licensing Bill was discussed] till the dissolution of 1874 nearly every public-house in the United Kingdom was an active committee-room for the Conservative Party". [Ensor, p. 21.] Gladstone blamed the Act for the Conservative victory in the 1874 general election, writing: "We have been borne down in a torrent of gin and beer". [Ensor, p. 21, n. 1.]

The Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 remodelled the English court system (establishing the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal) and attempted to abolish the House of Lords as a judicial body for England but this not implemented due to the Conservative victory of 1874.

As Gladstone's Secretary of State for War, Edward Cardwell enacted far-reaching reforms of the British Army in what would become known as the Cardwell Reforms.

Public expenditure on the military and the navy by 1871 was at its lowest level since 1858. Overall, national public expenditure was reduced from £71,000,000 in 1868 to £67,000,000 in 1870 and 1871. However it rose to £74,604,000 in 1874 but Gladstone was able to produce five surpluses for each year amounting to £17,000,000. He was also able (he resumed the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer in August 1873 till the dissolution of Parliament in early 1874) to reduce the income tax to 3 pence in the pound in 1873 and the next year proposed to abolish it altogether if he won the next general election. [F. W. Hirst, "Gladstone as Financier and Economist" (London: Ernest Benn, 1931), pp. 262-63.]

Foreign policy

In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 Gladstone attempted to persuade the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to forbear from annexing Alsace and Lorraine from defeated France. Gladstone published an anonymous article in the "Edinburgh Review" in October 1870 espousing his views but it did not remain anonymous for long. Bismarck remained unconvinced by Gladstone's overtures, however. France would regain both provinces in 1919 and 1944—but only after two World Wars with Germany.

During the American Civil War the Confederate ship CSS "Alabama" had been built in an English port and had subsequently damaged Union shipping. In 1872 Gladstone settled the "Alabama Claims" by giving the United States $15,500,000 as part of the Treaty of Washington.

econd government (1880 - 1885)

Gladstone's Liberals won a 52 seat majority in the 1880 general election. In the next year Gladstone was convinced that in order to pass a Land Bill for Ireland, law and order should be restored. In February 1881 Gladstone's government therefore passed the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act 1881 which gave the Viceroy of Ireland powers to suspend habeas corpus, and gave him in effect the power to lock up anyone he liked for as long as he liked. This was the Act used to arrest Irish Nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell. In August that year Parliament passed the Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881 which gave Irish tenants "the three Fs"; fair rent, fixity (security) of tenure; and the right to freely sell their holdings. [Magnus, p. 298.] Gladstone's government also passed the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Act 1882, which cancelled rent arrears for Irish tenants occupying land worth less than £30 per annum who were unable to pay. [Magnus, p. 304.]

The Married Women's Property Act 1882 gave married women the same rights to buy, sell, and own property as unmarried women did and had the effect of women being legally recognized as individuals in their own right for the first time in history.

Gladstone's second government also saw a number of electoral reforms. The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883 aimed at eliminating corruption in elections and the Representation of the People Act 1884, which gave the counties the same franchise as the boroughs—adult male householders and £10 lodgers—and added about six million to the total number who could vote in parliamentary elections. Parliamentary reform continued with the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.

Public expenditure was reduced to slightly under £81,000,000 in 1881 from the £83,000,000 inherited from the previous administration of 1879. However it rose to £89,000,000 in 1885. [Hirst, p. 263.] For nearly three years into his second government Gladstone resumed the office of Chancellor. He abolished the tax on malt for the farmers, funding this by adding one pence on income tax and introducing a duty on beer, in 1880. In 1881 he reduced the income tax to five pence in the pound, funding this by increasing the duty on spirits, probates and legacies. In his last Budget in 1882 Gladstone added to the income tax. [Hirst, p. 263.]

Gladstone's government was unexpectedly defeated on the Budget vote in 8 June 1885 and therefore Gladstone resigned the premiership the next day, with Lord Salisbury forming a minority Conservative administration.

Foreign policy

Gladstone won the 1880 election on the back of his Midlothian campaign against Disraeli's support for the Ottoman Empire. He proceeded to reverse Disraeli's foreign policy by withdrawing the British garrison in Kandahar in Afghanistan and wanted to cede Cyprus to Greece, although he was dissuaded from this by Lord Granville. [Magnus, p. 285.] Although he had denounced the annexation of the Transvaal in the election campaign, he announced in January 1881 that self-government was not going to happen. The Boers rebelled against this in February and drove the British out by force at the Battle of Majuba Hill. Gladstone implemented the Pretoria Convention later in August which ended the First Boer War. In October in a speech at Leeds, Gladstone proclaimed: "While we are opposed to imperialism, we are devoted to the empire". [Magnus, p. 287.]

However in 1882 a nationalist revolt in Egypt headed by Colonel Urabi led to a riot in Alexandria whereby hundreds of foreigners were massacred. There was a danger to the Suez Canal (which Britain had a stake in) as well as to British holders of Egyptian bonds. At first, Gladstone appealed to the Concert of Europe to take collective action, although this was met by unenthusiastic responses. France refused to send military forces in fear of weakening France's defences against Germany. On 10 July Gladstone instructed that an ultimatum be given to Urabi to halt military fortifications of Alexandria within twelve hours. Urabi did not answer and so on 11 July the Royal Navy bombarded the city. This resulted in rioting and Gladstone got from Parliament £2,300,000 and raised the income tax from 5"d". to 6½"d". in order to finance a military campaign. [Magnus, p. 290.] On 19 August British troops commanded by Sir Garnet Wolseley landed at Port Said and on 13 September defeated Urabi's forces at the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir. On hearing news of the British victory Gladstone was ecstatic and ordered salutes of the guns in Hyde Park in their honour. [Magnus, pp. 290-91.]

In January 1884 Gladstone consented to sending General Gordon to the Sudan to report on the best means of evacuating Egyptian garrisons there in the aftermath of the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad's rebellion. When Gordon arrived in the Sudan he wanted to hold the capital, Khartoum. At first Gladstone refused to send a relief expedition but a few months later he consented and in October 1884 General Wolseley embarked from Cairo to Khartoum but arrived there too late to save Gordon, who had died when Khartoum fell to the Mahdi. "No single event in Gladstone's career made him more unpopular" [Ensor, p. 63.] and a vote of censure in the Commons reduced the government's majority to fourteen.

Third government (1886)

The general election in November/December 1885 saw the Liberals lose 33 seats but in January 1886 Salisbury resigned the premiership after losing a vote in the Commons and so Gladstone formed a government on 1 February. Gladstone soon drew up a Land Purchase Bill 1886 that enabled rural Irish landlords to quit their land in Ireland if they desired, with their previous tenants assisted with a loan of £120,000,000 secured on British credit at 3%. [Magnus, p. 352.] Joseph Chamberlain and George Otto Trevelyan resigned from the Cabinet when Gladstone told them that he intended to introduce Irish Home Rule. The First Home Rule Bill was introduced to Parliament on 8 April and the Land Purchase Bill on 16 April. The Land Purchase Bill was criticised heavily from all sides and was dropped. The Home Rule Bill was defeated by 343 votes to 313, with 93 Liberals voting against. [Ensor, p. 99.] Liberals which split from the Party because of Home Rule became the Liberal Unionist Party. Gladstone dissolved Parliament and called a general election which resulted in a Unionist (Conservative and Liberal Unionist) landslide victory under Salisbury.

Fourth government (1892 - 1894)

The general election of 1892 returned more Liberals than Unionists but without an overall majority. The Unionists stayed in office until they lost a motion of no confidence moved by H. H. Asquith on 11 August. Gladstone became Prime Minister for the last time at the age of 82, and was both the oldest ever person to be appointed to the office and when he resigned in 1894 aged 84 he was the oldest person ever to occupy the Premiership. [Daisy Sampson, "The Politics Companion" (London: Robson Books Ltd, 2004), p. 80, p. 91.]

Gladstone was the first Prime Minister to make it a condition of ministers to resign directorships of public companies in 1892. This was abandoned by Salisbury in 1895 and Arthur Balfour after him but was restored by Liberal Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1905 and was observed ever since. [Ensor, p. 210.]

Having to rely on Irish Nationalist votes, Gladstone introduced the Second Home Rule Bill in February 1893, passing second reading on 21 April by 43 votes and third reading on 1 September by 34 votes. However the House of Lords killed the Bill by voting against by 419 votes to 41 on 8 September. Gladstone wanted to call a general election to campaign against the Lords but his colleagues dissuaded him from doing so.

Public expenditure in the years 1892-93 was £80,000,000 with income tax at seven pence in the pound. In 1894 Britain's imports totalled £408,000,000, with total British-made exports at £216,000,000 (and the re-export of imports valued at £57,000,000). [Hirst, p. 264.]

In December 1893 an Opposition motion proposed by Lord George Hamilton called for an expansion of the Royal Navy. Gladstone opposed increasing public expenditure on the naval estimates, in the tradition of free trade liberalism of his earlier political career as Chancellor. Almost all his colleagues, however, believed in some expansion of the Royal Navy. Gladstone also opposed Sir William Harcourt's proposal to implement a graduated death duty, which Gladstone denounced as "the most radical measure of my lifetime". [Magnus, p. 417.]

Gladstone decided to resign the Premiership, ostensibly on health grounds, on 2 March 1894. The Queen did not ask Gladstone who should succeed him but sent for Lord Rosebery (Gladstone would have advised on Lord Spencer). [Magnus, p. 423.]

Notes

References

*R. C. K. Ensor, "England, 1870-1914" (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936).
*F. W. Hirst, "Gladstone as Financier and Economist" (London: Ernest Benn, 1931).
*William Edward Hartpole Lecky, "Democracy and Liberty: Volume II" (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981).
*Philip Magnus, "Gladstone. A Biography" (London: John Murray, 1963).
*Sir Llewellyn Woodward, "The Age of Reform, 1815-1870. Second Edition" (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).