William Ewart 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.