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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Gladstone has not been well served by the historiographical tradition dominant for much of this century. It has disseminated an image of him that emphasizes little more than an undefined ‘reformism’ and a moralizing populism; this is as unhelpful and distorted as is the interpretation, emanating from the same source, of much of the rest of nineteenth-century politics. It is no longer enough to judge public figures of this period by the degree of their commitment to nebulous platitudes like ‘social reform’ or ‘progress’: historians have recently exposed the flimsy foundations that sustain the reputations of even those most frequently celebrated in these spheres. It is misleading to concentrate attention on the development of institutional reform, centralized government, trade union legislation, or welfare statutes for the poor; franchise extension apart, advances here were often provoked solely by bureaucratic agency or by the concern of philanthropic backbenchers, and contributed only occasionally to the major disputes of Victorian political society. If we are to shed light on the domestic issues of vital importance to contemporary politicians, we need a far more coherent account than is now available of financial, taxation and land policy on the one hand, and, on the other, of the main subject of this article, the role of religion in politics.
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37 Reeve to Clarendon, 9 Aug. 1868, Clarendon papers, c 496, fo. 252.
38 Fortescue to Halifax, 30 Jan. 1872, 1 Feb. 1872, Hickleton papers, A 4 181.
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66 Failing to see this bond of religious understanding, many were later puzzled by Morley's intimacy with Gladstone: The personal papers of Lord Rendel (London, 1931), p. 79Google Scholar. See also Hamer, D. A., John Morley: Liberal intellectual in politics (Oxford, 1968).Google Scholar
67 Dale, Dale, pp. 271–2.
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69 See Speeches in south-west Lancashire, pp. iv-v, 23–7.
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80 For this, and a detailed examination of these and other extra-parliamentary pressures on the government, see pp. 370–416 of an important thesis, which supports the conclusions of practically this whole paragraph: D. Roland, ‘The struggle for the Elementary Education Act and its implementation 1870–73’ (unpublished Oxford B.Litt., 1957). See also Gladstone's memorandum, 28 May 1870, Gladstone papers, 44759, fo. 104.
81 Reid, Forster, I, 502–3; George Grey to Gladstone, 7 June 1870, Gladstone papers, 44162, fo. 320; Brand to Gladstone, 24 May 1870, Ibid. 44194, fo. 124; Gardiner, Harcourt, I, 215–16.
82 Reid, Forster, I,497–8; Lathbury, Correspondence, II, 128; Roland, ‘Elementary Education Act’, pp. 426, 432–4.
83 Gladstone to Brand, 24 May 1870, Gladstone papers, 44194, fo. 129.
85 The figures are Roland's, ‘Elementary Education Act’, pp. 546–8.
86 Gladstone to Manning, 16 Apr. 1870, Lathbury, Correspondence, II, 52.
87 H. Lloyd to Cairns, 31 Dec. 1869, Cairns papers, Public Record Office, 30/51/16, fo. 6; Derby diary, 16 Mar. 1870, Derby papers, Liverpool Record Office.
88 See Cardwell to Gladstone, 15 Jan. 1868, Gladstone papers, 44118, fo. 251. Gladstone had been forced to interject, in response to questions on the committee stage of the 1869 bill, that by taking a limited view of its scope he was finally able to support it: Hansard, cxcvii, 796–8.
89 Hansard, cc, 1090, 1 Apr. 1870; Clarendon to Gladstone, 21 Apr. 1870, Gladstone papers, 44134, fo. 188; Gladstone to Clarendon, 22 Apr. 1870, Clarendon papers, c 498, fo. 314.
90 Hansard, cciv, 779.
91 Ibid., ccviii, 722–8, 745–52.
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96 Kimberley to Gladstone, 26 Nov. 1870, Gladstone papers, 44224, fo. 98; Ramm, Correspondence, I, 191, 192, 197; anon., Birmingham protestant association.
97 George Grey to Halifax, 26 Dec. 1871, Hickleton papers, A 4 58; Russell to Granville, 4 Nov. 1871, Granville papers, 30/29/79.
98 Earl Grey to Halifax, 19 Nov. 1872, 13 Dec. 1872, Hickleton papers, A 4 55; Grey memorandum, 14–15 Mar. 1873, Earl Grey papers (Ponsonby file).
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102 Hansard, ccx, 359, 362, 369–71, 373, 376–7, 703–6, 711–15, 723–6: Synan, O’Conor Don, Butt, Nolan, Smyth, O’Donoghue, Digby, Gray, Maguire. Many of the staunch Liberals were pleading with the government that a massive agitation for home rule was the alternative.
103 Gladstone to Hartington, 28 Sept. 1871, Devonshire papers, Chatsworth, 2nd series, 340, fo. 469.
104 Hansard, ccx, 343–59, 602–3, 723.
105 Stansfeld to Halifax, 23 Apr. 1872, Hickleton papers, A 4 51.
106 See the speeches of Playfair, Bouverie and Morrison: Hansard, ccx, 1822–30, 1841–3.
107 Gladstone to Hartington, 16 Jan. 1873, Gladstone papers, 44144, fo. 25.
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112 Hartington memorandum, 25 Nov. 1872, Granville papers, 30/29/69, fo. 212; Hartington to Spencer, 29 Nov. 1872, Holland, Devonshire, I, 108–9; Hartington to Gladstone, 27 Nov. 1872, 15 Dec. 1872, Gladstone papers, 44143, fos. 204, 213; Torrens, W. McCullagh, Twenty years in parliament (London, 1893), p. 175.Google Scholar
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114 Dublin column, The Times, 18, 24, 26 Feb., 3 Mar. 1873.
115 Hansard, ccxiv, 1824–6, 11 Mar. 1873.
116 The whips had accurately computed two days before that only sixteen Irish Liberal M.P.s of any sect would support the bill. One very moderate Irishman, O’Reilly, said that he would have voted for the second reading but for Cardwell's speech. Hartington to Spencer, 8 Mar. 1873, Holland, Devonshire, I, 116; Hansard, ccxiv, 1754.
117 For example in his Address to the electors of Greenwich, 24 January 1874; see E. R. Norman, Catholic Church and Ireland, p. 451.
118 Other secularists who opposed the bill were Horsman and Whalley; Fitzmaurice and the nonconformist Taylor abstained. However, these six were also notorious party dissidents probably motivated in large part by dislike of Gladstone (as were a couple of the whiggish rebels). For Fitzmaurice and Horsman on the academic question, see Hansard, ccxiv, 1209, 1419. For the whips, see Holland, Devonshire, I, 116.
119 Hansard, ccxiv, 1773; for Harcourt, see Ibid. 1618–30.
120 Ibid. 1855.
121 Ibid. 1618–9. Bouverie, Torrens, Akroyd and Peel were the most celebrated of the whiggish rebels; others had been undistinguished.
122 Fortescue to Northbrook, 9 Mar. 1873, Northbrook papers, India Office Library, Eur. c 144, 21 (1); Minto to W. Wilson, 24 Feb. 1874, Minto papers, National Library of Scotland, 12360, fo. 88.
123 Hansard, ccxiv, 1683–7.
124 Ibid. 1226–30.
125 Harcourt to Rathbone, Jan. 1874, Rathbone papers, Liverpool University Library, IX 7, fo. 144; Gardiner, Harcourt, I, 263–6, 279.
126 Russell to Halifax, 11 Mar. 1874, Hickleton papers, A 4 56. Whigs could complain not merely about religious policy, but about indecision abroad and extremist tendencies on local government and taxation, which must be explained elsewhere.
127 Grey to Halifax, 25 Jan. 1874, Ibid. A 4 55; Somerset, in Hansard, ccxviii, 39–43, 19 Mar. 1874; Halifax to Northbrook, 26 Mar. 1874, Northbrook papers, 22.
128 For example Harrington to Gladstone, 11 May 1872, Gladstone papers, 44143, fo. 166.
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147 Selborne, Memorials II, I, 470.
148 Gladstone to Granvillc, 7 Dec. 1874, Ramm, Correspondence, II, 461.
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