Liberalism · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Liberalism by L. T. Hobhouse.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
William Ewart Gladstone
major
Also known as V Gladstone, Gladstone
Gladstone stands at the hinge of Hobhouse's story, the practical statesman who carried Cobdenite fiscal reform to completion and then stretched liberal principle into imperial and Irish questions where freedom of contract broke down between glaringly unequal parties. He is a moral rather than an intellectual force, a man who knew tyranny when he saw it and waged unremitting war upon it. His career shows the early–middle arc of Liberalism shifting from laissez-faire economics toward a conscience-driven politics of justice.
Jeremy Bentham
supporting
Also known as Bentham
Bentham supplies the intellectual bedrock that Hobhouse's liberals are raised on, the 'pure milk of the Benthamite word' that shapes James Mill and lingers in his son. His legacy is a tension: a doctrine that cannot appeal to individual rights against public welfare, yet must somehow ground them in the permanent conditions of social health. He matters because the whole book is an argument about what can be salvaged from his inheritance once experience complicates it.
James Mill
supporting
Also known as James Mill, Mill
James Mill represents the old Liberalism in its most uncompromising form, the doctrinaire utilitarianism that Hobhouse treats as a starting point rather than a destination. His presence shadows the book through his son, who was brought up on the pure milk of the Benthamite word and never definitively abandoned his father's first principles. The friction between inherited doctrine and fresh experience is precisely the drama of Liberalism's transition from old to new.
Richard Cobden
supporting
Also known as Cobden
Cobden is the quiet architect of the economic creed that Gladstone spent his middle years completing, the 'Cobdenite policy of financial emancipation' that reshaped British budgets and the supremacy of the Commons. Yet Hobhouse marks a divergence: Gladstone was not a non-interventionist, and his principle of statecraft — that reasons of State justify nothing not already justified by human conscience — goes beyond Cobden's. Cobden thus anchors the early liberal faith in free trade while setting up the moral internationalism that follows.
John Locke
minor
Also known as Locke
Foundational philosopher of liberal ideas on government and rights.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
minor
Also known as Sir Henry Campbell - Bannerman
Liberal Prime Minister referenced in political context.
The Englishman
minor
Also known as The Englishman
Generic representative of English liberal character.
St. Peter
minor
Also known as St. Peter, Peter
Biblical figure used as an allegorical reference in liberal discourse.
