William Ewart Gladstone - Early Life (1809–1840)

Early Life (1809–1840)

Born in 1809 in Liverpool, England, at 62 Rodney Street, William Ewart Gladstone was the fourth son of the merchant Sir John Gladstone from Leith (now a suburb of Edinburgh), and his second wife, Anne MacKenzie Robertson, from Dingwall, Ross-shire. Gladstone was born and brought up in Liverpool and was of purely Scottish ancestry. One of his earliest childhood memories was being made to stand on a table and say "Ladies and gentlemen" to the assembled audience, probably at a gathering to promote the election of George Canning as MP for Liverpool in 1812.

William Gladstone was educated from 1816 to 1821 at a preparatory school at the vicarage of St Thomas's Church at Seaforth, close to his family's residence, Seaforth House. In 1821 William followed in the footsteps of his older brothers and attended Eton College before matriculating in 1828 at Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Classics and Mathematics, although he had no great interest in mathematics. In December 1831 he achieved the double first class degree he had long desired. Gladstone served as President of the Oxford Union debating society, where he developed a reputation as an orator, which followed him into the House of Commons. At university Gladstone was a Tory and denounced Whig proposals for parliamentary reform.

Following the success of his double first, William travelled with his brother John on a Grand Tour of Europe, visiting Belgium, France, Germany and Italy. On his return to England, William was elected to Parliament in 1832 as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Newark, partly through the influence of the local patron, the Duke of Newcastle. Although Gladstone entered Lincoln's Inn in 1833, with a view to becoming a barrister, by 1839 he had requested that his name should be removed from the list because he no longer intended to be called to the Bar.

In the House of Commons, Gladstone was initially a disciple of High Toryism, opposing the abolition of slavery and factory legislation. In December 1834 he was appointed as a Junior Lord of the Treasury in Sir Robert Peel's first ministry. The following month he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, an office he held until the government's resignation in April 1835.

Gladstone published his first book, The State in its Relations with the Church, in 1838, in which he argued that the goal of the state should be to promote and defend the interests of the Church of England. The following year, having met her in 1834 at the London home of Old Etonian friend and then fellow-Conservative MP, James Milnes Gaskell he married Catherine Glynne, to whom he remained married until his death 59 years later. They had eight children together:

• William Henry Gladstone (1840–1891), MP.
• Agnes Gladstone (1842–1931), later Mrs. Edward Wickham.
• Rev. Stephen Edward Gladstone (1844–1920).
• Catherine Jessy Gladstone (1845–1850).
• Mary Gladstone (1847–1927), later Mrs. Harry Drew.
• Helen Gladstone (1849–1925), Vice-President of Newnham College, Cambridge
• Henry Neville Gladstone (1852–1935), Lord Gladstone of Hawarden.
• Herbert John Gladstone (1854–1930), MP and Viscount Gladstone.

Gladstone's eldest son William (known as "Willy" to distinguish him from his father) became a Member of Parliament but pre-deceased his father, dying in the early 1890s.

In 1840 Gladstone began to rescue and rehabilitate London prostitutes, walking the streets of London himself and encouraging the women he encountered to change their ways. Much to the criticism of his peers, he continued this practice decades later, even after he was elected Prime Minister.