William Ewart Gladstone was born in Liverpool in 1809. During his upbringing, he developed a deep Christianity that would define his politics.  He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He achieved double firsts in Literae Humaniores and Mathematics.

Initially, Gladstone was a Tory. He spoke compellingly against reform at Oxford. When he first ran for Parliament, to the safe seat of Newark, in 1832, he did so as a Tory. His first speech would be opposing the government’s bill to abolish slavery in the British Empire.

Gladstone made a good impression on the house, speaking frequently and well. When Robert Peel formed his minority government in 1834, he asked Gladstone to be a junior minister. Peel was sufficiently impressed with Gladstone’s performance that he asked Gladstone to return as Vice-President of the Board of Trade in 1841, where he effectively ran the department.

Gladstone earned a reputation as a diligent, effective, and hard-working minister. But at this time, he was becoming steadily alienated by his experience of working with the Conservative Party. In 1845, he resigned, over a minor grant of money that had been given to a Catholic seminary, which he, as a dedicated Protestant, could not support.

Peel brought Gladstone back into Cabinet in December 1845. Becoming a minister meant a by-election. His patron, the Duke of Newcastle had clashed with Gladstone over the latter’s support for free trade, and refused to make the seat available, leaving Gladstone in the rather awkward position of being a minister without a seat in either house.

Gladstone returned to Parliament in 1847 (after the fall of Peel’s government) as the MP for Oxford University.  He was now affiliated with a different group in Parliament, the Peelites, who supported free trade, having split with the Conservatives. He also showed that he was independent minded, voting to allow Jews to be admitted to Parliament, and opposing Lord Palmerston’s famous intervention in the Don Pacifico Affair.  In December 1852, it was his forensic dismantling of Disraeli’s budget that convinced Parliament to reject it and brought down Derby’s government.

It was at this time that Gladstone began to embrace the idea of electoral reform. He also started to build a mass movement, speaking at great meetings, and using the railways to reach large numbers of people.

In the final days of 1852, the Peelite Lord Aberdeen was appointed Prime Minister at the head of a coalition government of Whigs and Peelites. Gladstone was appointed Chancellor. He proved an extremely effective Chancellor, effectively reinventing the role, and leaving the Treasury at the centre of government activities, a position it has never yielded. He advocated for spending restraint, free trade, and low taxes. Additionally, he also spent a good deal of time working on Civil Service reform, helping to create a more modern and meritocratic service.

Aberdeen left office in 1855, and Gladstone briefly served Palmerston, before resigning, along with the rest of the Peelites, when an inquiry was created over the conduct of the Crimean War. During the years that followed, Gladstone turned down offers from Derby (and even Disraeli) to join the Conservatives in government.

In 1859, Palmerston formed a government and Gladstone returned as Chancellor, this time with the two united in the newly created Liberal Party. He continued to serve in Lord John Russell’s government after Palmerston’s death in 1865, taking over as Leader of the House of Commons. Gladstone attempted to pass legislation increasing the franchise in 1866, but it failed and the government resigned.

Gladstone led the Liberal Party into the 1868 election, winning over 100 more seats than Disraeli’s Conservatives and becoming Prime Minister (much to Queen Victoria’s disdain).

Gladstone’s 1868-74 government was one of the most capable and experienced in British history. It had a number of important achievements, including the disestablishment of the Irish Protestant Church, the normalisation of relations with the USA after the Civil War, an Education Act that established school boards, and a Ballot Act introducing secret ballots at a local and government elections.

When legislation over Irish Universities was defeated in the Commons in 1873, Gladstone attempted to resign, but Disraeli refused to form a government. Gladstone called an election in early 1874, in which he won a majority of the votes, but lost 100 seats and Disraeli’s Conservatives won a majority.

Gladstone retired to his Hawarden home to write. However, within a few years, he was inspired to return to politics by what he saw as Disraeli’s cynical indifference to Turkish military atrocities in the Balkans. From 1878, he fought the famous ‘Midlothian campaign’, named after the seat he contested in the 1880 election. This was a campaign of speeches and mass meetings, inspired by similar American style campaigning, that Gladstone used to castigate the government’s record at home and abroad. The result was a large Liberal majority and the leadership of the Liberal Party stood aside so that Gladstone became party leader and Prime Minister again.

Gladstone’s second government would see another Reform Act and Irish Land Act. There was also a repressive Irish Coercion Act. But the ultimate record was rather disappointing.

Foreign affairs were more muddled still, with Gladstone and most Liberals opposing imperial expansion, and yet drawn into imperial affairs. In 1882, Gladstone’s Cabinet ordered the invasion of Egypt after a coup and rioting in the country threatened European interests. The war was swiftly won, and Britain de facto controlled Egypt for decades afterwards. In 1885, Major General Gordon was killed by Mahdist forces that seized the city of Khartoum, the circumstances were complicated, and Gladstone was irritated that Gordon had disobeyed orders to evacuate. He was accused of having failed to promptly organise a rescue. In June 1885, he resigned and a short-lived Conservative government led by Lord Salisbury followed.

The Liberals did not win the November/December 1885 election, but they held more seats than the Conservatives and Gladstone embarked on a third premiership in early 1886. This time he focused heavily on Irish Home Rule, the necessity of which he had become convinced. However, the issue split the Liberal Party, with Joseph Chamberlain’s Liberal Unionists rejecting Home Rule. There was another election in July 1886, and Lord Salisbury won it.

The Liberals had dominated 1850-1880s Victorian politics and won most of the elections held in that era. But the split over Home Rule marked the beginning of a process that would see them, eventually, eclipsed as one of the two main British parties.

Gladstone now devoted his time to his last great campaign – for Irish Home Rule. In the 1892 election, Gladstone’s Liberals were able to obtain enough seats to form a minority government with Irish Nationalist support. By now Gladstone was 82 years old, and only his prestige and authority held the fractious Cabinet together. In September 1893, he passed the Second Home Rule bill, but it was rejected by the Lords. In 1894, after a dispute over naval expenditure with the Cabinet, Gladstone finally resigned, aged 84.

Gladstone was a ferocious reader and read over 20,000 books in his life and attended over 22,000 meetings with people. He chronicled his life meticulously in his diaries. He also enjoyed felling trees, causing Randolph Churchill to quip that “The forest laments in order that Mr Gladstone may perspire”.

Gladstone married Catherine Glynne in 1839. They had eight children.

Gladstone died in 1898. He received a civil state funeral.