51 Iles Herbert Gladstone Biography

OrgANISER PAR EXCEllENCE By Lawrence Iles Reading Cooper’s wearisomely dull entry in the old Dictionary HErbErt glAdstONE (1854 – 1930) of National Biography on the youngest son of Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone, one could be forgiven for thinking that Herbert Gladstone’s career was one of effortless progression: from Modern History Lecturer at an Oxford college, to Liberal Chief Whip, Home Secretary and first UK Governor- General of the new South African Union, with a fine end as an active Liberal Viscount, staunchly protective of his father’s good name. Indeed, the Whig politician Robert Lowe, who supported both of Herbert Gladstone’s first two parliamentary candidacies, even thought him future prime ministerial material.1 24 Journal of Liberal History 51 Summer 2006 OrgANISER PAR EXCEllENCE HErbErt glAdstONE (1854 – 1930) ut with this flattering neither Herbert Gladstone’s auto- on ‘condition’ that he obtained impression, much biography, After 30 Years (1928), for the town the ‘eminence’ of contemporary and nor his official biography, Herbert national office. Yet in reality his subsequent opinion Gladstone: A Memoir (1932), by the role as Chief Whip nearly twenty begs to differ. Pio- former Liberal MP, Sir Charles years later was his first major post, Bneering Liberal Party historian Mallet, do justice to the subject’s and his local organiser, Alder- Roy Douglas, in an acerbic series controversial side.4 man Joseph Henry, had to be of observations, accused Glad- If we go beyond these books persuaded that this office was of stone of being both too ‘high- and consider his public utter- any real importance. Fortunately, principled’ and too secretively ances, faithfully recorded by the as Neville Masterman, the biog- and cunningly base as regards his newspapers of the day, and the rapher of Gladstone’s ill-fated 1903 Liberal–Labour pact, which papers of the Leeds Liberal Party predecessor Tom Ellis, has shown, gave Labour its first opportunity for the period 1880–1910 when the office had recently become to grow.2 For his part, the Tory he sat in the Commons, new light more important as a result of Ellis’ politician Henry Chaplin casti- can be shed on the career of this insistence on both financing it gated Gladstone for being a ‘chip often unfairly maligned figure. more effectively and extending off the old block’ in his ability What emerges from using its consultative role to encompass to be ‘casuistical’ in appearing to such sources for the first time is a all kinds of radicals beyond West- agree with both sides of an argu- very different politician from his minster’s cliquish clubbery. What ment simultaneously. Chaplin illustrious father. Herbert Glad- was lacking, however, was flair was not the only contemporary stone was very much a twentieth- and drive and, in terms of repair- to compare Gladstone unfavour- century politician, particularly ing this deficiency, Gladstone’s ably with his father. Joe Biggar, a in terms of his organisational flamboyant determination was to leading Irish Nationalist MP, told abilities, which helped the Liberal prove ideal.5 the Leeds branch of the United Party achieve its landslide victory Out of office, Gladstone had Irish League that their local MP in 1906 and a significant, if short- been increasingly frustrated at would be ‘nothing’ without his lived, measure of revival in 1923. the very deliberate minimisa- father’s name; and Lloyd George Before surveying how Glad- tion of his talents for innovatory once described Gladstone as liv- stone contributed to these leadership. He had contemplated ing proof of the ‘Liberal doctrine achievements, it is worth con- leaving Liberal politics altogether, that quality and intellect were not sidering the impression left by especially after he survived the hereditary’.3 Cooper that, as a result of his 1895 general election with a If nothing else, all these ver- name, Gladstone was a shoo-in majority of only ninety-seven dicts show that, in Cooper’s own (Left) Herbert for all the high offices of state he votes, amid allegations of treat- inadequate assessment, Gladstone Gladstone in held. The Leeds Mercury in 1880 ing aimed at his wealthy Tory was a ‘hearty controversialist’. Yet 1906. had welcomed him as their MP opponent. Before he became Journal of Liberal History 51 Summer 2006 25 ORGANISER PAR EXCELLENCE Chief Whip in 1899, senior Lib- Senior and pro-Boer stance in the past. the same direction. Indeed, con- erals had deliberately overlooked The New Statesman, in 1914, criti- trary to Cooper, it should now Gladstone for fear of courting Liberals cally reviewed all his published be irrefutably stated that the the accusation of nepotism.6 official correspondence as Gov- so-called Hawarden Kite inci- Gladstone had been an unpaid had delib- ernor-General, which showed dent (Hawarden Castle being Junior Lord of the Treasury dur- that he had vigorously restricted the Gladstones’ home), in which ing his father’s second term of erately workers’ right to strike and other the Liberal former premier was office from 1880 to 1885, and in overlooked civil liberties. Charles Masterman, ‘flown’ publicly for the first time the short-lived 1886 administra- initially a protégé of Gladstone’s, as a home ruler, instead of being tion he was made Financial Sec- Gladstone was attacked from both the left a supposedly accidental conver- retary to the War Office, serving and right in by-elections at the sation between his youngest son as deputy to Campbell-Banner- for fear of time because of the way in which and reporters, was a deliberate man as Secretary of State for War. workers, often immigrants from act, at least by Herbert Gladstone, He did slightly better in the 1892 courting the UK, were being treated.8 if not necessarily his father. As Liberal government, serving as the accu- Despite the later disappoint- contemporaries realised, ranging Asquith’s Under-Secretary at the ment of Gladstone’s career, in the from reluctant home rule Whig Home Office. Nonetheless, sheer sation of period when he served as Chief Lord Granville, with his fulmina- administrative hard work was all Whip he exerted a good, mod- tions against ‘the Leeds plotters’, that was expected here too. To his nepotism. ernising effect on his father’s fac- to anti-home rule Joseph Cham- anger, when he tried to use his tion-ridden, old-fashioned party. berlain, this briefing was not in own initiative, in favour of the Trevor Lloyd, in a 1974 survey the least bit accidental.11 new spirit of social, intervention- of Gladstone’s fundraising and The Leeds Liberals had long ist Liberalism, his reputation as a candidate support activities, has been planning a pre-emptive hard worker who toed the party shown that working with very strike against the domination of line did not help him. The party’s little money (he often had to the National Liberal Federation Publications Department, under borrow from, or plead with, his by the Chamberlainite Birming- James Bryce, declined to print an elder brother Henry and the ham radicals. The trouble was that, article of Gladstone’s criticising right-wing northern Liberal until Irish home rule was thrust opposition by the National Lib- Barran family) Gladstone kept into prominence by the new eral Federation to the payment the party in good shape during Parnellite Home Rule League, of salaries to MPs. The article was a period of considerable political both Leeds radicals like Glad- instead published in the far more difficulties.9 stone and moderates like Leeds elite Albemarle magazine.7 The main controversy affect- Mercury editor T. Wemyss-Reid, Politically frustrated, and mar- ing the party at that time was lacked a credible radical issue ried, in 1902, to a socially con- Ireland. Indeed, in a 1927 article with which to discredit Cham- servative, rich, southern English on the Whips’ Office, penned berlain and the new municipal property heiress, it was hardly for the American Political Science socialist radicals, or to gain the surprising that, in his later career Review, Gladstone claimed that allegiance of older laissez-faire in the Home Office and as Gov- this island’s future status was the radicals like Henry Labouchère ernor-General of South Africa, primary political issue of his life- and Charles Bradlaugh. This was Gladstone’s progressive outlook time. He blamed Lord Richard because Gladstone found much was mellowed by the conserva- Grosvenor, the anti-home rule of Chamberlain’s NLF pro- tive outlook of the British politi- Liberal Chief Whip of the 1885– gramme ‘inspiring’.12 He agreed cal establishment. He had been 86 period for sowing the seeds of with its redistributionist focus on taught to obey unimaginatively, partition. While this is more than aristocratic and capitalist wealth. even if this was contrary to his a little unfair to Grosvenor, the As late as 1885 Chamberlain him- progressive principles. Asquith, 1927 article sheds some light on self expressed the view that, were who privately considered him Gladstone’s attitude towards the it not for William Gladstone, he lazy, wanted Gladstone out of the issue with which he is now most would consider Herbert a good Home Office when he replaced closely identified.10 radical influence upon the party. Campbell-Bannerman as Prime When he first stood, unsuc- In old age, Herbert Gladstone Minister in 1908, and was glad to cessfully, for the Commons in sought to play down some of install Churchill in his place. Tory Middlesex in 1880, Glad- the more collectivist and eco- In South Africa his rule was stone had indicated that, ‘while nomically left-wing implications regarded by right-wingers as fair no home ruler’, dealing with of his support for home rule.

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