W. E. Gladstone (1809-1898)

William Ewart Gladstone was born in Liverpool in 1809, the fifth child of Sir John Gladstone and his wife Anne. By the time that William was born, the Gladstone family had accumulated a fortune based on their sugar plantations in the West Indies and the transatlantic corn and tobacco trade.

In 1821 he was sent to join his older brother Thomas at Eton College, as his father was determined that at least one of his children should succeed in politics, and believed that an Eton education would be the best way of ensuring this. Whilst at Eton, Gladstone ran the Eton Society,an intellectual and debating club, alongside people such as Arthur Henry Hallam, Francis Doyle and James Milnes-Gaskell. When he left Eton at Christmas 1827 he had achieved his father's objective and grafted himself onto the metropolitan political elite The following January he began studying at Christ Church, Oxford. After gaining a double first Gladstone left Oxford in December 1831 and was elected as member of parliament for Newark the following year. He was returned unopposed in the January 1835 elections.

In July 1839 he was married to Catherine Glynne, having courted her in Rome whilst on a continental tour. The wedding took place in Hawarden, North Wales, where her family had an estate which would become the home of the Gladstones from 1874.

In the 1840s Gladstone served as part of the Peel Government, being appointed vice-president of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. After a period in opposition, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer for the first time between 1852 and 1855. He would go on to hold the office a further three times, punctuated by periods in opposition. In 1868 he became Prime Minister for the first time, an office which he also held four times before finally retiring in 1894.

William Gladstone died at Hawarden in May 1898 after a public battle with cancer of the palate. He had a state funeral and was buried in the statesman's corner of Westminster Abbey.

At Wellcome Collection:

MS.5486/39 comprises a letter by Gladstone to Mary Canning, daughter of the diplomat Stratford Canning (1st Viscount Stratford De Redcliffe).

PP/HO/D/D/154 is a resolution to Gladstone when he was Colonial Secretary, PP/HO/G/B/22 is a copy of a parody poem about Gladstone, and MS.7154 is a letter written by Catherine Gladstone