Synopses & Reviews
W. E. Gladstone towers over the politics of the nineteenth century. He is known for his policies of financial rectitude, his campaigns to settle the Irish question and his championship of the rights of small nations. He remains the only British Prime Minister to have served for four separate terms. In 1998 an international conference at Chester College brought together Gladstone scholars to mark the centenary of his death, and many of the papers presented on that occasion are published in this volume. Covering the whole of the statesmans long political life from the first Reform Act to the last decade of the nineteenth century, they range over topics as diverse as parliamentary reform and free trade, Gladstones English Nonconformist supporters and his Irish Unionist opponents. A select bibliography, arranged by subject, supplies guidance for further research. The collection forms a tribute, appreciative but critical, to the Grand Old Man of British politics.
Table of Contents
Contributors
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction - David Bebbington
Gladstone, Chalmers and the Disruption of the Church of Scotland - Stewart J. Brown
'The Strict Line of Political Succession'? Gladstone's Relationship with Peel: An Apt Pupil? - Eric Evans
Gladstone and Homer - David Bebbington
Gladstone and Parliamentary Reform - Roland Quinault
Gladstone, Liberalism and the Government of 1868-1874 - Jonathan Parry
Gladstone and Cobden - Anthony Howe
Networking through Sound Establishments: How Gladstone Could Make Dissenting Sense - Clyde Binfield
Gladstone and Irish Nationalism: Achievement and Reputation - Alan O'Day
In the Front Rand of the Nation: Gladstone and the Unionists of Ireland, 1868-1893 - D. George Boyce
Exporting 'Western & Beneficent Institution': Gladstone and Empire, 1880-1885 - Eugenio Biagini
Glandstone's Fourth Administration, 1892-1894 - David Brooks
'Carving the Last Few Columns out of the Gladstonian Quarry': The Liberal Leaders and the Mantle of Gladstone, 1898-1929 - Chris Wrigley
William Ewart Gladstone: A Select Bibliography - Roger Swift
Index