THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Gladstone, William ___ 1809-1898 ___
British ___ politician
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Gladstone was born in Liverpool,
the son of a prosperous merchant, and educated at Eton and at Christ Church,
Oxford. Although planning to enter the church, he decided instead on politics.
He was elected a Tory MP for Newark in 1832, when only 23. His talent for
public speaking led Prime Minister Robert Peel to give him appointments
in the Treasury and then in the Colonial Office. After six years in opposition,
he returned to government still under Peel, and was eventually appointed
President of the Board of Trade. In the late 1840s and 1850s, Gladstone's
political views changed. As a young man, he had been a Tory, and yet by
1859 he had joined the Whigs (or Liberals) and then became Chancellor of
the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell. He succeeded Russell
as leader of the Liberal party in 1867. He was Prime Minister on four separate
occasions (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, 1892-94), enabling many reforms, including,
in his second term the Reform Act, which extended the vote to many rural
voters. His last two terms were dominated by the Irish Home Rule issue.
In July 1839, Gladstone married Catherine Glynne (who bore eight children)
and, at together they set up a 'rescue' home for prostitutes. Gladstone
used to wonder the streets of London at night trying to persuade prostitutes
to start a new life. Given Gladstone's life and great achievements, it is
disappointing to find his diary, kept for 70 years, bald and uninteresting.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1826-1896 ___ political people
royalty health historyeye
WEB TEXT LINKS
a
few excerpts about campaigning in Scotland
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Lambeth
Palace Library ___ 1925-1935
St Deiniol's
Library ___ possibly or else British
Library
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Life of Gladstone
The Gladstone diaries, with cabinet minutes and Prime Ministerial correpondence:
14 vols
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |