AT HIS death in 1898, William Ewart Gladstone, or “WEG” as he was often called, was widely acknowledged as the greatest British statesman of the 19th century.
Prime Minister four times, he had journeyed from youthful Toryism to an idiosyncratic, reforming Liberalism, which encompassed striking achievements in social welfare, education, foreign policy (where he was an imperial sceptic, and professed to follow an ethical approach to conflict resolution), and constitutional affairs. He embraced male universal suffrage, disestablished the Church of Ireland, and cast himself as the opponent of privilege, backing, so he claimed, “the masses against the classes”.
In all this, religion was his wellspring. He was an avid, almost obsessive churchgoer. He was plainly the most energetic and influential Anglican layman of his century, a High Churchman whose hand was in practically every good cause that the Church of England adopted in his lifetime.
A natural and justifiable embarrassment at the origins of John Gladstone’s wealth in Caribbean plantations, with their slave labour, has marred the modern reputation of his son. As a young man, William (born 1809) defended his father’s name, and the scheme by which John and other owners were compensated on slavery’s abolition in 1833; later in life, he was a strong critic of slavery, but his family’s status and power were based on John’s business. This is the awkward fact that Michael Wheeler fully acknowledges, even as he takes the reader into the contorted and fascinating inner world of William.
AlamySydney Prior Hall’s Mr Gladstone Reading the Lessons in Hawarden Church (1892)
Others have written about Gladstone’s religious views, and all his biographers are indebted to the monumental work that the historian Colin Matthew undertook in editing his diaries. But Wheeler gets closer still to the heart of the man, combing his personal papers, including the sermons that he wrote for his family, to piece together a picture of the innermost thoughts and feelings of this very complex man.
Gladstone was a bundle of contradictions, perhaps like all of us, but with greater intensity and energy than most of us could ever muster. He could seem indignant, fastidious, sanctimonious, critical, proud, fiery, or passionate, by turns, but his private outpourings reflected deep awareness of his failings. His “rescue” work with prostitutes was honourably begun, but it was risky for a public figure, and it shaded into erotic fantasy, which, however, never quite tipped over into outright infidelity. All this is laid out beautifully in this highly readable, entertaining, and instructive book, as we would expect from Wheeler, a master of his art.
This latest addition to Oxford’s Spiritual Lives series will not satisfy those who want a more detailed outline of the public man, the politician and statesman. But that is not its purpose. There are excellent biographies to hand already. Even at his death, Gladstone could seem a figure from a remote past, imposing and intensely serious. But Wheeler certainly humanises him, and shows us the heart of this most loyal member of the Church of England.\
The Revd Dr Jeremy Morris is the Church of England’s National Adviser for Ecumenical Relations.\
William Ewart Gladstone: The heart and soul of a statesman (Spiritual Lives)
Michael Wheeler
OUP £30
(978-0-19-888151-3)
Church Times Bookshop £27