GLADSTONE, Thomas (1804-1889), of 6 Albany, Westminster, Middlesex; Fettercairn, Kincardineshire

Heir to the domineering Scottish-born Liverpool merchant John Gladstone (1764-1851), Gladstone dutifully imitated his father’s Conservatism during a short, fragmented and frequently hapless parliamentary career, which contrasted starkly with the steady rise of his younger brother William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98), to whom he ‘bore a strong resemblance’.1The Times, 21 Mar. 1889. Born into a devoutly Evangelical household and groomed for public life from an early age, Gladstone had trouble fulfilling his father’s expectations and was unhappy at Eton.2S. Checkland, The Gladstones: a family biography, 1764-1851 (1971), 82-99, 131-39; H.C.G. Matthew, Gladstone, 1809-1874 (1986), 5-10; R.T. Shannon, Gladstone (1982), i. 5-6. An influential electoral patron in Liverpool, and MP for Lancaster 1818-20, New Woodstock 1820-26, and Berwick 1826-27, John Gladstone was able to secure a seat at Queenborough for his son in the unreformed parliament.3HP Commons, 1820-32.

At the 1832 general election Gladstone was elected by a single vote for the Irish constituency of Portarlington and it was said that he would return to Liverpool ‘with much lighter pockets than he had when he left it’.4Checkland, The Gladstones, 258-61; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (1972, 8th edn.), 240. Qu. from Freeman’s Journal, 19 Dec. 1832. However, given that the constituency was reputedly ‘bound head and heels to the will of the noble earl who takes his title from the town’, and he was also opposed by the corporation, the result could be seen as a victory for independence.5Freeman’s Journal, 28 Dec. 1832. A petition against his return was presented, 19 Feb. 1833, but Gladstone was declared duly elected, 1 Apr. 1833.6CJ, lxxxviii. 73-74.

In 1833 Gladstone opposed the appointment of an inquiry into the 1832 Liverpool election and a year later defended the mayor and corporation from attacks during the debate on disenfranchising the port’s freemen.7Hansard, 6 Mar. 1833, vol. 16, c.321; ibid., 26 Feb. 1834, vol. 21, c.860. He served on two committees which promoted the development of Irish waterways to encourage economic activity and agricultural improvement.8One approved the construction of the Dublin and Kingstown Canal, subject to a survey to ascertain the potential cost, and the other argued for an improved navigation of the river Shannon, to be funded by the government, and recommended that the waterway be placed under unified control as different sections were currently under the control of different authorities: PP 1833 (591), xvi. 452; 1834 (532), xvii. 141-49.

With his re-election for Portarlington unlikely, Gladstone offered for the venal borough of Leicester in 1835, and was elected in second place behind another Conservative. His continued interest in Ireland was shown by his membership of the 1835 committee which favourably reviewed the performance of the board of public works established in 1831 (by 1 & 2 Will. IV, c.33), and recommended that it be granted more resources and powers.9PP 1835 (329), xx. 146-47, 152-53, 157-66. In the same year he took his brother William’s place on the inquiry into printed papers, whose third report favoured rationalising Commons offices to increase efficiency and avoid conflicts of interest, particularly over private bills.10PP 1835 (606), xviii. 382. A Conservative loyalist, Gladstone supported Manners Sutton for the speakership, voted against the amendment to the address to the king’s speech, and opposed Lord John Russell’s resolutions on the Irish church.11Hansard, 19, 26 Feb. 1835, vol. 26, cc. 59, 411; Derby Mercury, 8 Apr. 1835. He complained in 1836 that the new magistrates appointed for Leicester were mostly dissenters, adding that ‘only three were churchmen, and one of them was of very doubtful character’.12Hansard, 29 Mar. 1836, vol. 32, c.823. He also defended the Legislative Assembly of Jamaica from ‘unnecessary interference’, arguing that legislation proposed by the Whigs should be a ‘subsidiary enactment’ to effect the abolition of slavery in the colony and nothing more.13Hansard, 15 Apr. 1836, vol. 32, cc. 1106-07.

At the 1837 general election resurgent Reformers captured both Leicester seats, with Gladstone finishing bottom of the poll.14McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 168. Although the press expected him to be returned for Peterborough in 1841, he finished 11 votes behind the second Liberal.15McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 235; The Times, 16, 28, 30 June 1841. Checkland, The Gladstones, 335, 337 states incorrectly that Thomas was returned for Peterborough. The following year, he was elected in second place at a double by-election at Ipswich, 3 June, where he angrily denied that he had owned slaves and said ‘he gloried in the recollection that he had voted … for the abolition of slavery’.16The Times, 3 June 1842. For a longer version of the speech see Ipswich Journal, 4 June 1842. However, his success was short-lived as a petition against the return, presented 20 June, led to the appointment of a committee which unseated Gladstone and his Conservative colleague, 30 July 1842.17CJ, xcvii. 404, 506, 551; Ipswich Journal, 6 Aug. 1842; PP 1842 (207), vii. 1; The Times, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 July 1842, 1 Aug. 1842.

Remaining an orthodox Conservative and Evangelical, Thomas was troubled by William’s divergence from their father’s religious and political opinions.18Checkland, The Gladstones, 347-48, 364; Matthew, Gladstone, 161; Shannon, Gladstone, 103, 145. Bowing to paternal pressure, he reluctantly supported his brother at the 1847 Oxford University election, but later cast votes against him.19Checkland, The Gladstones, 358; Oxford University poll book (1847), 35; The Times, 21 Mar. 1889. He voted against William at the 1853 by-election and 1859 general election: Oxford University poll book (1853), 24; Oxford University poll book, (1859), 31. Gladstone was further irritated by William’s attempts to persuade him, in 1844, to give up his claim on their father’s Fasque estate in Scotland, so that he might have it.20Checkland, The Gladstones, 364; Matthew, Gladstone, 101; Shannon, Gladstone, 158-59, 246. On John Gladstone’s death in 1851, Thomas succeeded to the baronetcy and to Fasque, and further purchases, of Littlestrath (1854), Strachan and Glendye (1856), and Balnakettle (1863), made him the ‘largest proprietor’ in Kincardineshire.21A. Cameron, The history of Fettercairn: a parish in the county of Kincardine (1899), 116-17 (qu. at 116); Checkland, The Gladstones, 367-68, 375; The Times, 21 Mar. 1889. He came forward to contest Kincardineshire at the 1865 general election, when he vehemently denounced Palmerston’s government as having ‘been a sham from beginning to end’, adding that it ‘came to power on false pretences; it retained power by forfeiting its pledges; and it continued in power only from a dread of letting in the Conservatives’.22Aberdeen Journal, 19 July 1865; Checkland, The Gladstones, 378. Although the constituency had been held unchallenged by his party for thirty years, Gladstone was easily beaten by a Liberal.23McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 156.

In later life, Gladstone’s appointment as lord lieutenant of Kincardineshire in 1876 provided some compensation for his political disappointments, and his relationship with William improved.24Matthew, Gladstone, 161, 242-43; Shannon, Gladstone, 325, 363. He died in 1889, succeeded by his only son, the bachelor John Robert (1852-1926), as 3^rd baronet, on whose death the title and estates passed first to the descendents of his brother John Neilson Gladstone (1807-63), MP for Ipswich 1842-47, Devizes 1852-57, 1859-63, and from 1945, to William’s heirs.25Burke’s peerage (1890), 584; ibid., (1907), 708; ibid., (1949), 827-28.