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Gladstone and Jamaica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Paul Knaplund
Paul Knaplund*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
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Extract

Early in his political life the famous British statesman, W. E. Gladstone, had close contact with colonial problems. His maiden speech in the House of Commons, June 3, 1833, was a defense of his father against charges that slaves were mistreated on the Gladstone plantations in Demerara; his first government post was that of Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Colonies; before the end of the 1830's he had served on many committees which studied questions relating to the colonies; and in 1846 he was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. In 1835 and again in 1849 he drafted pamphlets on the British colonial empire; by mid-nineteenth century he was a leading advocate of colonial self-government; and his speech “Our Colonies” at Chester, November 12, 1855 (published as a pamphlet), was a clear statement of his creed that “ freedom and voluntaryism ” should govern the relationship between Britain and the overseas portions of the British Empire. While in later years noncolonial issues received most of his attention, he never abandoned his faith in freedom as the basic remedy for intra-imperial problems. In the closing years of his political career he fought magnificently but vainly to apply that principle of freedom (which had stilled colonial discontent) to the age-old Irish question.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , April 1959 , pp. 351 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1959

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References

1 Under Lord Aberdeen in the Peel ministry, December, 1834-April, 1835.

2 Among his committee assignments were: Military Expenditures in the Colonies, 1835; Aborigines Committee, Negro Apprenticeship Committee, and Select Committee on Disposal of Land in the Colonies, 1836; Colonial Accounts Committee, 1837. Morley, John, The Life of William Ewan Gladstone (new ed.; 3 vols. in two; New York, 1911), 1, 654–655.Google Scholar

3 Knaplund, Paul, Gladstone and Britain’s Imperial Policy (London, 1927).Google Scholar

4 Speech in the House of Commons, June 3, 1833. Hansard, 3rd series, vol. XVIII, cols. 334–335; Morley, op. cit., I, .103–105.

5 House of Commons, March 22, 1836, and March 30, 1838. Hansard’s Debates, 3rd series, vol. XXXII, cols. 486–489; vol. XLII, col. 225; Morley, op. cit., I, 145–147. “‘We joined in passing the measure; we declared a belief that slavery was an evil and demoralising state, and a desire to be relieved from it; we accepted a price in composition for the loss which was expected to accrue.’ ” Quoted, ibid., p. 147. For a discussion of the apprenticeship system, see Burn, W.L., Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the British West Indies (London, 1937).Google Scholar

6 Knaplund, op. cit., pp. 171–172.

7 The phrase was used by Macaulay, T.B., article in The Edinburgh Review on Gladstone’s first book, The State in its Relations with the Church. Quoted in Eyck, Erick, Gladstone (London, 1938), p. 30.Google Scholar

8 Knaplund, op. cit., p. 176.

9 Ibid., pp. 176–177.

10 The House of Commons, May 6 and June 10, 1839. Hansard, 3rd series, vol. XL VII,, cols. 921–933; XLVIII, cols. 118–124; Burn, op. cit., p. 354, note 2; Morley, op. cit., I, 221–222.

11 Speech May 6. Hansard, vol. XL VII, col. 929.

12 Ibid., cols. 930–931.

13 Ibid., col. 929.

14 Ibid., cols. 931–932.

15 Speech June 10. Hansard, 3rd series, vol. XLVIII, col. 119.

16 SirBurns, Alan, History of the British West Indies (London, 1954), pp. 668–678 Google Scholar; Sires, Ronald V., Jamaica in Decline, unpublished Ph.D. thesis in the University of Wisconsin library Google Scholar; Wrong, Hume, Government of the West Indies (Oxford, 1923), pp. 53–79.Google Scholar

17 Gladstone to Cardwell, December 17, 1865, letter book copy, Gladstone Papers.

18 House of Commons, June 23, 1852. Hansard, 3rd series, vol. CXXII, col. 1213.

19 Letter to the Reverend E. Stokes, August 17, 1854. Lathbury, D.C., W.E. Gladstone Correspondence on Church and Religion (2 vols.; New York, 1910), 1, 126–127.Google Scholar

20 Morley, op. cit., II, 257–280.

21 British Parliamentary Papers (hereafter cited P.P.), 1871, vol. XLVIII, no. 269, p. 3. On July 23, 1869, Grant had reported to Granville on the state of the established church in Jamaica. About three-fifths of the population attended church, of these perhaps one-third were in communion with the Church of England. Ibid., pp. 3–10; Burns, op. cit., pp. 667–668.

22 Governor Grant “ by energetic measures and the assistance of the nominated Legislative Council quickly restored the colony’s finances and regulated the judicial administrative systems.” Burns, op. cit., p. 677. “ In Jamaica … under the able and firm control of Sir J.P. Grant, ninety-seven laws were passed in 1867 and 1868 covering a very wide field. It is hardly saying too much to maintain that the full benefits of emancipation were only made available for the negroes of Jamaica … after the [Assembly] disappeared, when at last a chance was given for a sane policy to be consistently followed by a strong Government.” Wrong, Hume, Government of the West Indies (Oxford, 1923), p. 78.Google Scholar

23 P.P., 1881, vol. LXV, no. 425, pp. 5–8; 1884, vol. LV, c-3854, pp. 6–8.

24 Original MS., Gladstone Papers at the British Museum.

25 Ibid.. Arthur Hamilton Gordon (created Lord Stanmore in 1893) was the third son of Lord Aberdeen, British prime minister, 1852–1855; he was private secretary to his father, 1853–1855, and to Gladstone, 1858–1859. In 1861 Gordon was appointed lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick where he served until 1866. Later appointments were governor of Trinidad, 1866–1870, Mauritius, 1871–1874, Fiji, 1875–1880, New Zealand, 1880–1882, and Ceylon, 1883-1890. From 1877 until 1883 Gordon was British High Commissioner and Consul General for the Western Pacific. His private correspondence with Gladstone began in 1851 and lasted intermittently until 1896. The letters, both ways, are included among the Gladstone Papers in the British Museum, ADD. MSS., 44319–44322, 44745, ff. 95168. Arthur Gordon was among the very few persons outside the family circle whom Gladstone addressed, “ My dear.”

26 Grey to Carnarvon, December 9, 1876. P. P., 1881, vol. LXV, no. 425, p. 4.

27 Musgrave to Lord Derby, April 17, 1883. P.P., 1884, vol. LV, c-3854, p. 3.

28 Ibid., p. 10.

29 Carnarvon to Grey, February 13, 1877, P.P., 1881, vol. LXV, no. 425, p. 15.

30 Letter book copy, Gladstone Papers.

31 P.P., 1884, vol. LV, c-3854, pp. 6–7.

32 Derby to Sir Henry Norman, May 28, 1884. P. P., 1884, vol. LV, c-4140, p. 30; Wrong, op. cit., pp. 125–126.