Gladstone’s Death and Funeral H. C. G. Matthew marks the centenary of Gladstone’s death.

Few political deaths can have been so anticipated as came known as the ‘Declaration’ (on his sexual   life and the extent of its improprieties); and he that of William Ewart Gladstone on May . wrote the final entry in the daily diary he had Though  years old when he died, Gladstone had begun while a schoolboy in . All was thus been in harness until March , when he resigned in order. But death was not to be so neat. Gladstone’s remarkably tough body put up a for the fourth and last time as prime minister. He strong fight. His habit of tree-felling – so de- had first been in office in , so his was a -year rided bv his contemporaries and subsequently long career which began before the reign of Queen – had kept him in excellent shape. His main problem was his eyesight, for which he had an Victoria and lasted almost to the end of it. Moreover; operation for cataract in his right eye in May though in his last administration he had clearly been ; this helped in that eye, but cataract near to retirement, his government had been no quickly developed in the left eye, and a further operation was thought inadvisable. Apart from nostalgic parade. He had carried through the House this difficulty, Gladstone remained apparently of Commons a Home Rule for Ireland Bill, and healthy. When he and his wife left to winter in Cannes in November , with Gladstone had thus demonstrated that such a thing was possible, feeling pain from neuralgia on one side of his even though it was immediately thrown out by the face, his former secretary noted: ‘He has always House of Lords almost without debate. Nor had made the most of his ailments ... one must make allowance for some exaggeration ... Apart from Gladstone been silent once he had retired. His last glumness and depression I could see no sign campaign was an appeal for justice for the Armenians of increased failure either mentally or physi- against persecution, made during a great speech at cally.’ In fact Gladstone was suffering from the cancer which killed him. While in France, he Hengler’s Circus in Liverpool, the town of his birth, had to take opiates but he refused close medi- on  September , which had occasioned the cal examination until he came home. He lis- resignation of Lord Rosebery from the leadership tened a great deal to music and his family no- ticed that his usual daily round of reading and of the Liberal Party. Gladstone’s final illness and death correspondence was in effect abandoned. Even was that of an old man, but one still very much in so, he was able to give an interview to the Daily Telegraph on Arthur Hallam, his Eton friend in the public eye. the s and the subject of Tennyson’s In A slow and semi-public death Memoriam; the Telegraph published it on  Janu- ary  in the form of an article, the last of After retirement from politics – he did not his many literary publications. stand for his Midlothian constituency at the The Gladstones in March  returned to general election of  – Gladstone rather sys- Britain a disconsolate party, and went to tematically prepared himself and his affairs for Bournemouth, as an intermediate temperature death. In the same month as his retirement from between the balmy Mediterranean and the the premiership he discussed with his wife bracing cold of wintery Hawarden Castle, the Catherine arrangements for their funerals (un- family home in North Wales where Gladstone fortunately, no details of this conversation re- had told his family he wished to die. He was main). At the end of  he wrote his third examined in Bournemouth by his doctor; and final will; he made what in his familv be- Samuel Habershon, who found a swelling on

38 journal of liberal democrat history 20: autumn 1998 the palate; the leading cancer sur- to press; but this meant the profit- rangements which followed and in- geon, Sir Thomas Smith, diagnosed able sell-out of extra special editions deed proceedings were already in cancer; but it was decided not to op- mid-morning. The press had had place before Gladstone died. In his erate. An announcement was made ample time to prepare: special sup- will Gladstone gave three directives: to the press which made it clear that plements were issued with the main an absolute requirement that he death was imminent. papers and memorial books and should not be buried where his wife Gladstone returned to Hawarden pamphlets of photographs were at might not subsequently be laid also; on  March, but he did not die once on sale. Newspapers could not the instruction that ‘no laudatory in- quickly. His final months occasioned then print photographs, and had to scription’ be placed over him; and intense public interest, with a squad fall back on drawings; most of them the statement that his burial was ‘to of press reporters based in Hawarden therefore either produced their own be very simple unless they (his Ex- keeping the world in touch with de- photographic books or had a part- ecutors) shall consider that there are velopments by telegraph. A stream nership with a publisher heavily ad- conclusive reasons to the contrary’. of Liberal potentates visited to pay vertised in the new papers, for which This might be seen as a simple pref- their respects. Gladstone received even the most staid carried unusu- erence for a simple burial, or it might them on his sofa, still getting up each ally large advertisements. be seen a characteristic piece of day to dress and to dine. He calcu- Gladstone’s death was thus the Gladstonian ambivalence – wanting lated how many days of his working second British death which was a to appear simple while leaving the life had been lost by illness (he could media event of the modern sort (the door open for a public funeral. Even remember the dates of all significant first had been the death of Gordon before his death, the family had illnesses, for they were few) and he in , for which Gladstone was opted for the latter. refused to take many opiates despite much blamed – but that was in the A public funeral was one paid for the pain, on the grounds that he Sudan and without direct reporting, by Parliament through a resolution would be ‘falling into bad habits’. He and Gordon’s body was never to the monarch. It was, and remains, regaled his visitors with hymns, es- found). Intimate descriptions of a very rare event. In the nineteenth pecially J. H. Newman’s ‘Praise to the Gladstone’s body on the deathbed – century only Nelson, Pitt the Holiest in the Height’. On  April of a sort probably unacceptable to- Younger, Charles James Fox, R. B. Gladstone went out of doors for the day – immediately appeared in the Sheridan, George Canning, the last time; on  April he ceased to Daily News, the main Liberal paper Duke of Wellington, Palmerston, and come downstairs; and about this time in London: ‘the figure on which I Napier of Magdala had been so bur- he made his last communion, cel- looked down, tremulous, might be ied (several had been offered and ebrated by G. H. Wilkinson, Bishop some beautiful statue of grayish declined, for example Beaconsfield of St Andrews. Nursed by Kate Pitts, white marble lying recumbent upon and Russell). Palmerston was the best Gladstone continued to get out of a tombstone ... only a very few of precedent (and he had made the bed for a time each day, but bv mid- the intimate friends of the family same requirement about his wife), May it was clear that he would soon have passed through this dim cham- but he had died in the Parliamen- die. Just after  a.m. on the morning ber of death, just pausing for a mo- tary recess and the procedures had of Ascension Day, Thursday  May, ment by the bedside to cast a fleet- had to be short-circuited. The Wel- with his wife, eight other members ing, a reverent look’. But of those lington funeral had been a lavish but of the family and three doctors few, most then published their ob- rather chaotic affair; the catafalque round the bed, Gladstone was pro- servations. Sir William Blake Rich- being too heavy for the road which nounced dead. mond, who made a drawing of gave way under it in St James’ and However much anticipated, this Gladstone just after death (dedicated too large to get through the gates of was an event reported throughout to Nurse Pitts), also issued a detailed St Paul’s (where both Nelson and the world. The pressmen were wait- (if romanticised) verbal portrait of Wellington were buried) and the ing in the smoking room immedi- the dead prime minister. These re- congregation was thus kept waiting ately underneath Gladstone’s bed- ports were not regarded as intrusive for over an hour. Gladstone’s funeral room and they knew that he was nor were they resented bv the fam- was to be the first public funeral with dead when the stentorian voice of ily, for they fitted with the Victorian a recognisedly modern aspect – Stephen Gladstone intoning the view of death as something both worldwide press coverage via tel- prayers for the dying and the dead reverential and ordinary. egraph and the procession filmed. echoed around the corridors of The arrangements for a public fu- Hawarden Castle. Gladstone’s timing neral are, like those of a coronation, was in a way inconvenient, for al- Plans for the public in the hands of the Earl Marshal, the though the news was immediately funeral Duke of Norfolk. To liaise with him, telegraphed to the Press Association the family asked Edward Hamilton, and around the world, the first edi- The Gladstone family bore the im- formerly Gladstone’s secretary, to tion of the London papers had gone mediate responsibility for the ar- take time off from the Treasury; journal of liberal democrat history 20: autumn 1998 39 Hamilton had in fact started work coffin be kept open for the lying-in- state’ this morning – though it can on the plans before Gladstone had state. Hamilton and the Duke thought hardly be called in state – so plain, died. that this ‘would no doubt be thought even to bareness was the whole scene We often think of public funer- “unEnglish” and without precedent’, – a plain oak coffin on a kind of al- als as martial events, with streets lined as did the Prince of Wales who was tar covered with a black cloth ... Two with soldiers, bands playing, the cof- becoming increasingly involved in the carpenters in front of me said “a fin covered with medals and borne plans for the proceedings in London. rough job – ¾ panels, & ¼ fram- on a gun carriage flanked by men Hamilton had to exercise ‘perempto- ing” referring to the coffin, which in uniform. Gladstone’s funeral riness’ to persuade the family to close was made by the village carpenter showed that this need not be so, even the coffin. at Hawarden. The scene however, at the high noon of Empire. Hamilton and the Duke, whom was impressive, as being in Westmin- the former found ‘a charming man ster Hall, & close to where his voice to work with – such a gentleman’, had echoed for  years.’ Lying-in-state at had made arrangements for the body At the end of the lying-in-state on to lie in state in Westminster Hall. It Hawarden and the Friday, the doors of the Hall were was brought to London during the reopened to allow Liberals to pay Westminster night of – May on a special train their respects: led by officials of the pulled by the engine ‘Gladstone’ National Liberal Federation and the While Hamilton and the Duke (now in the Railway Museum at planned in London, the first steps Liberal Chief Whip, Tom Ellis, and York), the train also containing the were taken at Hawarden. There, concluded by members of the Na- large crowd of journalists and illus- tional Liberal Club, a long proces- Gladstone’s body was laid out in the trators who had gathered at Te mple of Peace – his study in the sion of deputations from Liberal As- Hawarden. On reaching Willesden in Castle – dressed in his doctoral robes sociations throughout the county north London, the coffin was trans- filed by. Given the state of their party from Oxford University. The family ferred to the District line of the un- chose these scarlet robes deliberately in , they must have wondered derground, in which company to emphasise that Gladstone was not if they were bidding farewell to the Gladstone had been a shareholder last Liberal prime minister. merely a politician but a person of since its flotation. The underground letters. Wearing his robes, his body train took the coffin to Westrninster was placed on a silk cloth embroi- station, from which it was carried The grave, the dered ‘Resquiescat in Pace’, the head into the Hall across the road. Part of and chest slightly propped up, with the aim of this operation had been pallbearers, and his mortar board laid on his chest to avoid a procession: there seems to Queen Victoria’s and a red silk handkerchief given to have been general agreement among him recently by the Armenians cov- the organisers that a procession, ering his feet. A bust of Disraeli was ‘oversight’ which would inevitably involve sol- prominent among the busts on the diers or police, would be inappro- Gladstone was buried in Westmin- top of the bookcases in the room. priate in Gladstone’s case. ster Abbey on the morning of Sat- The room was then open for mini-  The coffin lay in state in West- urday, May, nine days after his lying-in-state for the people of minster Hall from  a.m. to  p.m. death. There was a good deal of ne- North Wales, and large numbers on Thursday and Friday,  and  gotiation about the place of the came to file past it. On  May, the May. It lay on an undecorated cata- grave; Dean Stanley, the reforming body, still in its doctoral robes, but falque while over a quarter of a mil- Dean of Westminster twenty years now sealed in a simple oak coffin, lion people filed past it. During the earlier, had allocated a plot; but the was pulled on a hand bier by col- night, Anglican priests and laymen grave had to be big enough in due liers, estate workmen, tenants and kept a vigil, but during the day the course to contain Mrs Gladstone labourers of Hawarden to the church coffin was unguarded. The crowds also; eventually a suitable spot was where communion service was held. were partly from London, but many found in the crowded floor of the Pulling a body on a bier was the tra- came by special train from the prov- political corner of the Abbey – ironi- ditional Victorian way of showing re- inces, for Liberalism was weak in cally it was near the statue of Disraeli spect – just as live politicians who London and strong in the rural ar- (though he was buried at were popular used to have their car- eas and in the Northern towns. One Hughenden) and was placed so that riages pulled by hand when they vis- of those who filed through the Hall Disraeli’s statue gazes permanently ited a town to make a speech. The was the novelist Thomas Hardy, al- down on the grave of his dead rival. closed coffin was the result of a deci- ways a sharp observer of the telling A short procession bore the cof- sion which caused the only serious detail. Hardy wrote to his sister: fin from Westminster Hall to the disagreement in the making of the Abbey in silence, on a simple funeral plans: the family was keen that the ‘I went to see Gladstone ‘lying in car (not a gun carriage), pulled by

40 journal of liberal democrat history 20: autumn 1998 two horses with civilian bearers and Edward VII) and the Duke of York what most saw as his mother’s bad grooms – some of them from the (later George V). Their inclusion was manners. He bluntly told the Queen, Hawarden Estate – accompanied by controversial, especially to Queen when she asked what precedents the pallbearers and a political pro- Victoria. The monarch traditionally there were for royalty attending such cession. The Guard of Honour was did not attend public funerals, and a funeral, that ‘the circumstances made up of schoolboys from were unprecedented, and he Eton, Gladstone’s school – a would and should never for- neat touch which emphasised get what a friend to Royalty the educational priorities of Mr G had been’. the dead man. The procession left as Big Ben struck  a.m., the bell of St Margaret’s, The funeral Westminster having previ- The congregation in the Ab- ously been tolling every bey had begun assembling at minute together with the . a.m., the door being bells of the Abbey muffled. shut at  a.m. Mrs Gladstone No account was taken of with her granddaughter public wishes to see the cof- Dorothy entered at ., fin – those were thought to followed, just before the cof- have been accommodated by fin, by the Princess of Wales the lying-in-state – and it was (later Queen Alexandra) and not processed round central the Duchess of York (later London. The area around the Queen Mary). The Earl of Abbey was consequently Pembroke, a person of no crammed with a crowd esti- consequence, represented the mated at up ,, many of Queen. Gladstone’s funeral whom were observed to be was thus attended by two fu- weeping openly. ture kings and two future The membership of the queens. Then entered the fu- pallbearing party was natu- neral procession and the cof- rally a matter of close atten- fin. The music before the tion and controversy, for the service was conventional – choice of pallbearers of a Schubert and Beethoven – dead prime minister necessarily in- nobody at this time suggested that and the setting was that of Croft. The cluded enemies as well as friends. A. she should. Nor, however, did other first two hymns were Gladstone’s J. Balfour and Lord Salisbury, who members of the Royal family, at least known favourites. Toplady’s ‘Rock of had moved the relevant motions in not in a prominent role, and Wales’ Ages’, almost an anthem of the Vic- the Commons and Lords, repre- gesture was typical of his capacity to torian evangelicals, reflected sented the government, despite their spot the need for change. The Queen Gladstone’s youthful religion: he ap- violent political antipathy to the was furious. Her antipathy towards proved of the hymn so much that dead man; Sir William Harcourt, Gladstone had reached a level of ir- he had translated it into Latin Lord Rosebery, and Lord Kimber- rationality in the last years of his final (Tractarianising it, almost); but it was ley represented the Liberal Party (we government. In marked contrast to its the original version that was sung. can be sure that Gladstone would effusive regrets – personally written The second hymn was Newman’s have preferred Lord Spencer to by Victoria – for Disraeli’s death in ‘Praise to the Holiest in the Height’, Harcourt, whom he found especially , the Court Circular did not verses of which Gladstone had difficult to deal with, but the Liber- record Gladstone’s death. When Lord quoted to his friends and family as als could hardly have all been mem- Salisbury, as prime minister and he lay dying. The third hymn was bers of the House of Lords!); the aware of mounting public anger, Isaac Watts’ ‘O God our Help in Ages Duke of Rutland, who as Lord John pointed this out, the Queen replied Past’, a national hymn. The choice Manners had sat with Gladstone for that the omission was ‘entirely an of hymns – a matter of great remark Newark, his first constituency; and oversight’! The Prince of Wales, who and sensitivity to contemporaries – two cronies, George Armitstead and had always enjoyed Gladstone’s com- was thus highly ecumenical, embrac- Stuart Rendel, who together had pany and sympathised with some of ing evangelicals, Roman Catholics, looked after and paid for the his policies, and whom Gladstone and the non-English parts of the Gladstones in the last years of his life. had seen as the means of restoring United Kingdom, for the Watts There were two further pallbear- the credit of the monarchy, was de- hymn was especially popular in Scot- ers: the Prince of Wales (soon to be termined at the funeral to correct land. None of Gladstone’s own journal of liberal democrat history 20: autumn 1998 41 hymns was used, though immedi- even so, reflected in his funeral. This ately after his death several were re- Memorials: a death in was, of course, in the larger scale of published in religious magazines. perspective things a false impression. There was By the end of the service, the a forced contrast between the deter- coffin was in the grave, and the fam- A Parliamentary motion paid for mined non-militarism of Gladstone’s ily and others went to look at it the statue of Gladstone in Westmin- funeral and the temper of the times; there. Mrs Gladstone led the con- ster Abbey. The national memorial and the British government was gregation out of the Abbey. As she to him took two chief forms. A about to embark in South Africa on passed down the nave, the Prince of Gladstone Memorial Trust was es- what was, in ratio to its objectives, Wales leaned over his pew and spoke tablished which still looks after the the most expensive and inept of all to her; they then shook hands on residential library of St Deiniol’s, its wars. Gladstonian Liberalism was Mrs Gladstone’s request. This brief Hawarden, based on his books but to have a last, dramatic burst in the gesture was very widely commented with a larger library and facilities governments of Campbell- on, and was taken by most to be in for accommodation; another Trust Bannerman and Asquith (–), effect an apology for his mother’s was established which still dispenses but the elegiac tone of the Gladstone behaviour. The Queen herself tried bursaries, prizes and other grants; funeral neatly brought to its end the to make amends by publishing the and provision was made for statues century of Liberalism. telegraph of condolence which she to be erected in the national capi- H. C. G. Matthew was Editor of The sent to Mrs Gladstone on the morn- tals of London, Edinburgh and Gladstone Diaries from . His two- ing of the funeral. Dublin (that for Dublin was refused volume biographical study of Gladstone The service could, of course, only by the city until a suitable one of has recently been published by Oxford be seen by those in the Abbey, and Parnell had been erected there first; University Press as a one-volume paper- there was no procession after the fu- it was meanwhile placed in back, Gladstone –. He is neral, for the coffin was already in Hawarden, where it remains). presently Editor of the New Diction- the grave. Contemporaries partici- Gladstone’s funeral was, in ret- ary of National Biography. pated in the proceedings in a rather rospect, especially remarkable for its different way from our th-century absence of bombast. Held at the TV-watching: church services were very peak of Empire, it emphasised Further reading held in churches of all denomina- civic, non-military, and religious  tions in cities, towns. villages and values. It was striking that the Brit- H. C. G. Matthew, Gladstone –   parishes throughout the United ish could at that moment hold a ( ), from which above quo- Kingdom and throughout the Em- state funeral which had no soldiers tations are taken. pire to synchronise thanksgiving for and no uniforms (save those of the The Passing of Gladstone: his life, death Gladstone’s life with his burial in the Heralds and of the Speaker and and burial (), no author known. capital. Similar services were also Lord Chancellor). The funeral of held in some cities of the United Queen Victoria three years later was D. W. Bahlman (ed.), The Diary of Sir   States, and especially in the mid- a very different affair, with much Edward Walter Hamilton –  West, where there were many Home comment on the contrast between ( ). Rule Associations and several towns the Queen’s personal faith and File on Gladstone’s funeral in named ‘Gladstone’. This idea of the ‘womanly’ lack of presumption and Gladstone, Glynne MSS, St Deiniol’s nation literally at prayer for a spe- the parade of military might which Library, Hawarden. cific purpose at a specific time was a her citizens provided to accompany remnant of the fast-disappearing cus- her to her grave. M. Mulgate, ed., Thomas Hardy: se- tom of days of national penance or Funerals are at their most effec- lected letters (). thanks. Despite a national and inter- tive when the service reflects the national fascination with the funeral, character and wishes of the dead This article originally appeared in the rest of the Saturday was as usual. person and at the same time caters issue 57 of The Historian (Spring Theatres were open and cricket and for the often rather different concerns of the mourners. In Gladstone’s case, 1998), and is reprinted with the horse racing were uninterrupted. kind permission of the author and there was a happy, almost organic, The Grand National Horse Show the Editor, Professor Chris Wrigley. opened that day at the Crystal Pal- coincidence of the personal and the ace, but was poorly attended. The national, of the religious and the Subscription details for The only cancellation seems to have been, political. Indeed. it might be argued Historian, the journal of the somewhat ironically, the Royal Mili- that the harmony between church Historical Association, are tary Tournament, whose Saturday and state which he had argued for available from 59a Kennington performance was postponed as a in his book, The State in its Relations Park Road, London SE11 4JH; tel. mark of respect. with the Church (), but which he 0171 735 3901; soon recognised as impractical was, [email protected].

42 journal of liberal democrat history 20: autumn 1998