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Gladstone's Resignation of the Liberal Leadership, 1874-1875

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Matthew R. Temmel
Matthew R. Temmel*
Affiliation:
University of WashingtonSeattle
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Extract

W. E. Gladstone resigned twice as leader of the Liberal Party. His final retirement of 1894 has received much attention, but his resignation two decades earlier is not well known. At age sixty-five, the recent loser in a surprise general election, the former prime minister stepped down from the Liberal leadership in January, 1875. Some observers doubted the permanence of his retirement, but previous speculation about the Liberal succession had assumed that Gladstone could hope at most for one further premiership. After he regained the leadership in 1880 and soldiered on as the Grand Old Man at the head of three further governments, Liberal sympathizers dismissed his 1875 resignation in retrospect as an unrevealing mistake, a temporary meandering from the true path of his career.

Recent studies have pointed to the decisive importance of Gladstone's course in the 1870s, especially to the implications of his return to public life. R. T. Shannon ties Gladstone's resignation to his loss of rapport with the popular forces that had once rallied to the banners of Reform and Irish disestablishment. His government's rejection at the polls in 1874 seemed to end “his great romance with the people of England.” Bitter, disillusioned, and mystified about the popular verdict, he resigned his post as Liberal leader. Freed from parliamentary responsibilities, Gladstone went on, almost in spite of his conscious intentions, to capture the soul of popular Liberalism, beginning with his hesitant but inspiring participation in the 1876 agitation against the Bulgarian atrocities, a campaign which held few attractions for the official Liberal hierarchy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , Fall 1976 , pp. 153 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1976

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References

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29. His thoughts of retirement in the 1840s, as in 1874-75, were closely connected with his growing isolation on religious issues. See Matthew's introduction to vol. III of The Gladstone Diaries, esp. pp. xxv, xxix, xxxii-xxxiii; also III, 106, 336, 676 (May 9, 1841; Dec. 29, 1843; Dec. 16, 1847); Morley, , Gladstone, I, 323, 383Google Scholar.

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36. Ibid., f. 168.

37. In 1875 Gladstone characterized himself as “almost a solitary representative of opinions respecting political economy which, 30 years ago, were the opinions of all men of any note in both political parties alike.” 3 Hansard 225: 1596 (July 16, 1875).

38. BM, Gladstone to Newman Hall, Nov. 23, 1871, copy, Add. MS 44,540, f. 175b.

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47. Lathbury, , Correspondence, I, 392Google Scholar, quoting notes made after the debates on the Public Worship Bill, BM, Add. MS 44,762, fols. 142-44. It is important that the Liberation Society's view matched Gladstone's. In a resolution sent to the press and to MP's, the Society declared: “Having regard to the fact that the confusion now prevailing within the Church of England is, in a great degree, the result of a reliance upon legal machinery for the furtherance of spiritual ends, there is ground for the belief that fresh legislation, and additional facilities for litigation, will but aggravate the evils they are intended to remedy, and will, therefore, prove hurtful to both the Church and to religion.” Parliamentary intervention in Church affairs, the Liberation Society anticipated, would deepen the conviction that disestablishment was preferable. Greater London Record Office, County Hall, Liberation Society Minute Book, A/LIB/5, p. 152, Aug. 13, 1874.

48. Forster and Lowe even wished that the bill could be extended to cover “moral discipline” and doctrine rather than just “dresses and gestures.” In any case parliament ought to “assert the supremacy of the law and the State over the Church.” Quoted from Forster's speech, 3 Hansard 221: 67-75 (July 15, 1874). Goschen and Harcourt also violently supported the bill, and Harcourt publicly ridiculed Gladstone's resolutions.

49. Altholz, Josef L., “Gladstone and the Vatican Decrees,” The Historian, XXV (1963), 312–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, based primarily on Gladstone to Granville, Nov. 2, 1874. For details of the scenario, based on fears of a second Franco-Prussian war, see Gladstone, 's article “Italy and Her Church,” Church Quarterly Review (Oct. 1875)Google Scholar, sections 6-11, reprinted in Gleanings of Past Years (London, 1879), VI, 196–201Google Scholar.

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52. “Ritual and Ritualism,” Contemporary Review (Oct. 1874)Google Scholar, section 35, revised and reprinted in The Church of England and Ritualism (London, 1875)Google Scholar and in Gleanings, vol. VI. Lathbury, the chief expositor of Gladstone's religious views, considered the pamphlet against the Vatican decrees a mistake and at least suspected that Gladstone was not being straightforward in his announced purpose of querying the civil loyalties of English Catholics. See Correspondence, II, 48Google Scholar.

53. BM, Gladstone's note, Jan. 9, 1875, Add. MS 44,762, f. 155.

54. Ibid., fols. 162-66, quoted in full in the Appendix to this article. All unattributed quotations refer to this memorandum.

55. A note of Jan. 1875, ibid., f. 154. The notes are mentioned in the Gladstone-Granville correspondence of Jan. 5, 17, 19, 28, 30, and Feb. 1, 1875. See Ramm, Agatha (ed.), The Political Correspondence of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville 1868-1876 [Camden Third Series, LXXXI-LXXXII] (London, 1952), II, 466–70Google Scholar.

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57. Ibid., II, 498-504.

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63. BM, Gladstone to Lord de Grey, Nov. 4, 1869, Ripon Papers, Add. MS 43,513, f. 282, partly quoted in Morley, , Gladstone, II, 300Google Scholar, and Lathbury, , Correspondence, II, 138Google Scholar. See also Roper, Henry, “W. E. Forster's Memorandum of 21 October 1869: A Re-Examination,” British Journal of Educational Studies, XXI (Feb. 1973), 64–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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65. BM, Gladstone's memorandum on the religious difficulty, May 28, 1870, Add. MS 44,759, f. 104, with fair copy at f. 112. The plan foundered on the impossibility of applying the same terms to the denominational schools, which were eligible for rate aid at this point in the bill's progress. Despite the impression he gave later, Gladstone had no intention in 1870 of secularizing the denominational schools. He wished in fact to require the school boards to give them rate aid, but the Education Act, as it finally emerged, prohibited this. Instead, the state grants were to be increased.

66. St. Mary of the Angels, Moorhouse Road, London, W.2, Forster to Cardinal Manning, n.d. [probably 1883 or later], Manning Collection. The British and Foreign School Society utilized an undenominational Bible teaching which was more or less adopted by the school boards.

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68. Gladstone to Rev. Septimus Buss, Sept. 13, 1894, Lathbury, , Correspondence, II, 148Google Scholar. For Gladstone's considered view of undenominational religious education, which he specifically linked with Erastianism, see his article, “The Place of Heresy and Schism in the Modern Christian Church,” Nineteenth Century, XXXVI (Aug. 1894), 167–71Google Scholar.

69. BM, Gladstone's memorandum on the religious difficulty, May 28, 1870, Add. MS 44,759, f. 104.

70. PRO, Gladstone to Lord Russell, March 24, 1870, Russell Papers, PRO 30/22/16F, printed in Lathbury, , Correspondence, II, 138Google Scholar.

71. Gladstone to Granville, Sept. 3, 1873, in Ramm, 1868-1876, II, 405.

72. Chatsworth, Gladstone to Hartington, Feb. 2, 1875, Devonshire Papers, 340.601, quoted in Holland, Bernard, The Life of Spencer Compton, Eighth Duke of Devonshire, 2 vols. (London, 1911), I, 149–50Google Scholar.

73. Bodleian, Hartington to Harcourt, Jan. 17, 1875, Harcourt Papers, quoted in Holland, , Devonshire, I, 141Google Scholar; PRO, Hartington to Granville, Jan. 18 and 21, 1875, Granville Papers, PRO 30/29/22A/2.

74. Ibid., Hartington to Granville, Jan. 20, 1875.

75. SUL, Memorandum by Forster, Jan. 26, 1875, Mundella Papers.

76. PRO, Goschen to Granville, Jan. 21, 1875, Granville Papers, PRO 30/29/28; Lowe to Granville, Jan. 17 and 25, 1875, ibid.; Lowe to Goschen, Jan. 23, 1875, in Elliot, A. R. D., The Life of George Joachim Goschen, First Viscount Goschen 1831-1907, 2 vols. (London, 1911), I, 156–57Google Scholar. The party's two elder statesmen, Bright and Gladstone, also favored Hartington, and press reports of their preference helped to turn the tide against Forster, who had enjoyed the major share of newspaper support. See BM, Bright to Gladstone, Jan. 17, 1875, Add. MS 44,113, f. 97; Gladstone to Bright, Jan. 18, 1875, Add. MS 43,385, f. 254.

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79. SUL, Memorandum by Forster, Jan. 26, 1875, Mundella Papers; Mundella to Leader, [Feb. 1, 1875], Mundella-Leader Correspondence.

80. This was the common description of Hartington, e.g., Pall Mall Gazette, Feb. 2, 1875. There is no adequate published study of the process by which Hartington succeeded to the leadership over Forster. But see Holland, , Devonshire, I, 139–51Google Scholar; Reid, Wemyss T., Life of the Right Honourable William Edward Forster, 2 vols. (London, 1888), II, 93–97Google Scholar; and Rossi, John P., “The Selection of Lord Hartington as Liberal Leader in the House of Commons, February, 1875,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, CXIX (Aug. 15, 1975), 307–14Google Scholar.

81. BM, Ripon's diary, Dec. 2, 1878, Ripon Papers, Add. MS 43,641, f. 6.

82. Shannon, Bulgarian Agitation, Chs. 2-4.

83. Hamer, D. A., “Understanding Mr. Gladstone,” New Zealand Journal of History, VI (Oct. 1972), 119–20Google Scholar.

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85. Northern Echo, Jan. 19, 1875; SUL, Forster to Mundella, Dec. 8, 1875, Mundella Papers. On Stead's role in 1876, see Shannon, , Bulgarian Agitation, pp. 49–50, 69–81, 103–4, 116–17Google Scholar.

86. BM, J. Guinness Rogers to Gladstone, June 20 [1876], Add. MS 44,450. On the Liberation Society see above, note 47. The Nonconformist mythology on the education question is discussed in Temmel, M. R., “Liberal versus Liberal, 1874: W. E. Forster, Bradford and Education,” Historical Journal, XVIII (Sept. 1975), esp. 619–22Google Scholar.

87. Shannon, , Bulgarian Agitation, pp. 163–65, 168–71, 273–74Google Scholar; Hamer, , Liberal Politics, pp. 63–78Google Scholar.

88. Chatsworth, Lord Fortescue to Hartington, Dec. 21, 1877, Devonshire Papers, 340.739.

89. See Shannon, , Bulgarian Agitation, pp. 9, 89, 171–90Google Scholar.

90. Bassett, A. Tilney (ed.), Gladstone to His Wife (London, 1936), pp. 209–10Google Scholar (Jan. 12, 1875).

91. Economist, Feb. 14, 1874.

92. Morley, , Gladstone, I, 148Google Scholar, passed over Gladstone's work with the National Society in the 1830s as “fossils of extinct opinion [which] neither interest nor instruct.” In fact, in 1870 Gladstone ascertained the views of the National Society and sought to modify the Education Bill to its wishes. His deep involvement with the Society, especially in 1838-39, can be seen in the many brief references in The Gladstone Diaries, vol. II, and in Robbins, Alfred F., The Early Public Life of William Ewart Gladstone (London, 1894), pp. 346–63Google Scholar. In 1839 he attacked the Whig plans for a Committee of Council on Education, which was to distribute the State grants to undenominational as well as to Anglican schools, as leading to “latitudinarianism and atheism” (p. 361).

93. Times, Aug. 10, 1866, commenting on Gladstone's declining to vote for a bill to end religious tests at the universities.