# Mr. Gladstone — Eminent Victorians character guide

> Mr. Gladstone in Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Gladstone

**First appearance:** 0003-cardinal-manning

## Snapshot

The great Liberal statesman whose moral earnestness and parliamentary mastery made him the towering political presence of the Victorian age.

## Who they are

Gladstone moves through Strachey's pages as the era's dominant public man, a figure whose religious seriousness and reforming energy shaped the political landscape against which Manning, Arnold, and Nightingale all played their parts. His presence reminds the reader that the Victorian age was not only a stage for saints and soldiers but a working democracy of speeches, budgets, and votes. Strachey uses him sparingly but pointedly, as the political weather against which the book's more eccentric figures define themselves.

## In the story

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/chapters/i)

Mentioned as a year senior to Manning at Oxford and as a fellow member of the Union.

### [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/chapters/iv)

Gladstone is Manning's close friend and correspondent; he is deeply perturbed by the Gorham judgment, proposes a procrastination scheme, and is present at Manning's last Anglican communion.

### [VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/chapters/vii)

Prime Minister of England who opposes Papal Infallibility; exchanges letters with Manning about their personal and political differences.

### [Manning's Final Years and Legacy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/chapters/x)

Gladstone comments on his relationship with Manning after Manning's death, referring to the conversion as a severe blow.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/chapters/iii)

Mentioned as a redoubtable antagonist in the Cabinet whom Sidney Herbert must battle over estimates, adding to the strain on Herbert's health.

### [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/chapters/iv)

Received a letter from Nightingale after Herbert's death and replied with a sympathetic account of the funeral.

### [The End of General Gordon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/chapters/the-end-of-general-gordon)

The Prime Minister, described as having 'mysterious passions' and being a 'slippery old man' who eludes Hartington's pressure to send a relief expedition.

### [Bibliography](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/chapters/bibliography)

Subject of biographies by Lord Morley and George W. Smalley.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/characters/gladstone
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/eminent_victorians_se/characters