{{short description|British politician (1854–1930)}} {{redirect|Herbert Gladstone|the New Jersey politician|Herbert M. Gladstone}} {{Use British English|date=May 2015}} {{use dmy dates|date=May 2015}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Viscount Gladstone | honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|GCB|GCMG|GBE|PC|JP}} | image = Viscount Gladstone.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = Gladstone c. 1910 | order = 1st | office = Governor-General of South Africa | term_start = 31 May 1910 | term_end = 8 September 1914 | monarch = George V | prime_minister = Louis Botha | predecessor = Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson (as High Commissioner for Southern Africa) | successor = Sydney Buxton | office1 = Home Secretary | term_start1 = 11 December 1905 | term_end1 = 14 February 1910 | prime_minister1 = {{ubl|Henry Campbell-Bannerman|H. H. Asquith}} | predecessor1 = Aretas Akers-Douglas | successor1 = Winston Churchill | office2 = Opposition Chief Whip in the House of Commons | term_start2 = 15 April 1899 | term_end2 = 10 December 1905 | leader2 = Henry Campbell-Bannerman | predecessor2 = T. E. Ellis | successor2 = Alexander Fuller-Acland-Hood | office3 = First Commissioner of Works | term_start3 = 10 March 1894 | term_end3 = 21 June 1895 | prime_minister3 = Archibald Primrose | predecessor3 = George Shaw Lefevre | successor3 = Aretas Akers-Douglas | office4 = Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department | term_start4 = 19 August 1892 | term_end4 = 10 March 1894 | prime_minister4 = William Ewart Gladstone | predecessor4 = Charles Stuart-Wortley | successor4 = George W. E. Russell | office5 = Financial Secretary to the War Office | term_start5 = 6 February 1886 | term_end5 = 20 July 1886 | prime_minister5 = William Ewart Gladstone | predecessor5 = Henry Northcote | successor5 = William Brodrick | office6 = Member of Parliament<br />for Leeds West | term_start6 = 10 May 1880 | term_end6 = 10 February 1910 | predecessor6 = William Ewart Gladstone | successor6 = Edmund Harvey | birth_name = Herbert John Gladstone | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1854|01|07}} | birth_place = Downing Street<br>Westminster, Middlesex, England, UK | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1930|03|06|1854|02|18}} | death_place = Ware, Hertfordshire, England, UK | party = Liberal | other_party = | spouse = {{marriage|Dorothy Mary Paget|1901}} | father = {{nowrap|William Ewart Gladstone}} | mother = Catherine Glynne | children = | relatives = William Henry Gladstone (brother)<br>Henry Gladstone (brother)<br>Helen Gladstone (sister) | education = Eton College | alma_mater = University College, Oxford | occupation = | profession = }} '''Herbert John Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone''' (7 January 1854 – 6 March 1930<ref name="ODNBHerbert">{{Cite ODNB|title=Gladstone, Herbert John, Viscount Gladstone|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-33417|access-date=2023-12-15|year = 2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/33417}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Gladstone, 1st Viscount, (Herbert John Gladstone) (7 Jan. 1854–6 March 1930)|url=https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540891.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-210081|access-date=2021-02-18|website=Who's Who & Who Was Who|year=2007|language=en|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u210081|isbn=978-0-19-954089-1 }}</ref>) was a British Liberal politician. The youngest son of William Ewart Gladstone, he was Home Secretary from 1905 to 1910 and Governor-General of the Union of South Africa from 1910 to 1914.
Appointed whip in 1899, Gladstone was an innovator who provided a long-term strategy, kept the party from splitting over the Second Boer War, introduced more modern constituency structures; and encouraged working-class candidates. In secret meetings with Labour leaders in 1903 he forged the Gladstone–MacDonald pact. In two-member constituencies, it arranged that Liberal and Labour candidates did not split the vote. Historians give him much of the credit for the Liberal triumph in 1906, with 397 MPs and a majority of 243.<ref name="ODNBHerbert"/>
Rising to Home Secretary in 1906–1908, he was responsible for the Workmen's Compensation Act 1906, a Factory and Workshops Act, and in 1908 the eight hour working day underground in the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908 (8 Edw. 7. c. 57). Historian John Grigg states that while his name is not often included in any list of radicals, his radical record is second to none in the Campbell-Bannerman Government. He was no firebrand but a good party man whose common sense inclined him to be less Gladstonian in the matter of state intervention then than his famous father had been. With his able under-secretary, Herbert Samuel, he sponsored no less than 34 Acts of Parliament during his time at the Home Office.<ref>John Grigg, ''Lloyd George, the people's champion, 1902–1911'' (1978). pp. 148–149.</ref>
==Background and education== Gladstone was the youngest son of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and his wife Catherine, daughter of Sir Stephen Glynne, 8th Baronet, and was born in Downing Street where his father was living at the time as Chancellor of the Exchequer. William Henry Gladstone and Lord Gladstone of Hawarden were his elder brothers. He was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford, and lectured in history at Keble College, Oxford, for three years.<ref name="ODNBHerbert"/>
==Political career== thumb|Gladstone circa 1895 In 1880 Gladstone became private secretary to his father.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/wrexham-advertiser-notes-on-news/136854545/ |title=Notes on News |newspaper=Wrexham Advertiser |page=7 |date=1880-12-11 |access-date=2023-12-15 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> That same year, having unsuccessfully contested the Middlesex constituency,<ref>Fred W. S. Craig, ''British Parliamentary Election Results, 1832–1885'', Dartmouth, 1989, {{ISBN|0900178264}}, p. 425</ref> he was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for Leeds.<ref name="rayment">{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20121219111108/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Lcommons1.htm House of Commons: Ladywood to Leek]}}, leighrayment.com</ref>
The Hawarden Kite was a famous newspaper scoop of December 1885, an instance of flying a kite, made by Gladstone, who often served as his father's secretary.<ref>The expression refers to Hawarden Castle, which was William Gladstone's home.</ref> At the time William Ewart Gladstone was Leader of the Liberal Opposition. Herbert gave the report to Edmund Rogers of the National Press Agency in London. The key statement was that his father now supported home rule for Ireland. The statement is accurate but it is unknown whether the father knew and approved of releasing it to the press. The bombshell announcement resulted in the fall of Lord Salisbury's Conservative government. Irish Nationalists, led by Charles Stewart Parnell's Irish Parliamentary Party, held the balance of power in Parliament. Gladstone's conversion to Home Rule convinced them to switch away from the Conservatives and support the Liberals using the 86 seats in Parliament they controlled.<ref>Roy Jenkins, ''Gladstone'' (1997) pp. 523–532.</ref><ref>M. R. D. Foot. [https://liberalhistory.org.uk/journal-articles/the-hawarden-kite/ "The Hawarden Kite"] ''Journal of Liberal Democrat History'' 20 (Autumn 1998) pp. 26–32.</ref>
In the 1885 General Election Gladstone was returned to Parliament for Leeds West.<ref name="rayment"/> Having been a junior Lord of the Treasury from 1881 to 1885, Gladstone became Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Works in 1885. The following year served for a brief period as Financial Secretary to the War Office in his father's third administration. In 1892, on his father's return to power, he was made Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department,<ref name="ODNBHerbert"/> and two years later he became First Commissioner of Works in Lord Rosebery's government,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=26502 |date=10 April 1894 |page=2019 }}</ref> at which time he was also sworn of the Privy Council.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=26494 |date=13 March 1894 |page=1517 }}</ref> In 1895 he gave the first contract to Mary Howard Ashworth to create the first typing facility in the Houses of Parliament<ref>{{Cite ODNB |title=Mary Howard Ashworth in the ODNB|date=2004-09-23 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/65767 |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |access-date=2023-05-17 |place=Oxford |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/65767 |isbn=978-0-19-861411-1 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B. |editor3-last=Goldman |editor3-first=L. |editor4-last=Cannadine |editor4-first=D.}}</ref> just before the Liberals fell from power. He became the Liberals' Chief Whip in 1899,<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/manchester-evening-news-the-new-chief-li/136854128/ |title=The New Chief Liberal Whip |newspaper=Manchester Evening News |page=4 |date=1899-04-15 |access-date=2023-12-15 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> and in 1903 he negotiated on behalf of the Liberals an electoral pact with the Labour Representation Committee.<ref name="ODNBHerbert"/> He was president of the Darlington Liberal and Radical Association from early 1900.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS86304333/TTDA |newspaper=The Times |publication-place=London |title=Court Circular|date=13 February 1900 |page=5 |issue=36064 |access-date=2023-12-15 |via=The Times Digital Archive}}</ref>
Gladstone returned to office in 1905 when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman appointed him Home Secretary.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=27863 |date=12 December 1905 |page=8897 }}</ref> According to historian Professor Ian Machin, Gladstone was not among “the foremost New Liberals such as Lloyd George and Churchill,” but was nevertheless a believer (as noted by one observer) in positive government,<ref>[https://liberalhistory.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/51-Iles-Herbert-Gladstone-biography-3.pdf Organiser par excellence The career of William Gladstone’s youngest son, Herbert Gladstone (1854-1930) By Lawrence Iles, Journal of Liberal History 51 Summer 2006, P.27]</ref> and played a large part in carrying a number of the Liberal welfare reforms during his time in office, including the Workmen's Compensation Act 1906, the Children Act 1908 (8 Edw. 7. c. 67), and the Trade Boards Act 1909.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/history/gladstone-herbert-viscount-gladstone/|title=Herbert Gladstone (Viscount Gladstone), 1854-1930|last=Machin|first=Ian|website=Liberal History}}</ref>
As Prince of Wales, King Edward VII had come to enjoy warm and mutually respectful relations with W. E. Gladstone, whom Queen Victoria detested.<ref>Magnus 1964, p. 212</ref> These feelings did not extend to his son. In September 1908 Herbert permitted Roman Catholic priests in vestments, led by Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli, to carry the Host in a procession through the streets of London. There were a flood of protests, and the King asked Gladstone to ban the procession to avert a breach of the peace. The Home Secretary was on holiday in Scotland at the time, and did not reply, giving rise to false rumours that the King – who was known to take an interest in Roman Catholic rituals when abroad – favoured the procession. In the end the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith had to ask Lord Ripon, the only Catholic Cabinet Minister, to ask for the Host and vestments to be cancelled.<ref name="Magnus 1964, p541">Magnus 1964, p. 541</ref>
The following year the King rebuked Gladstone for appointing two women, Lady Frances Balfour and May Tennant, to serve on a Royal commission on reforming Divorce Law – the King thought divorce could not be discussed with "delicacy or even decency" before ladies. Philip Magnus suggests that Gladstone may have become a whipping-boy for the King's general irritation with the Liberal Government.<ref name="Magnus 1964, p541"/>
Gladstone was sacked in the reshuffle in 1910 and the King agreed, with some reluctance, to appoint him the first Governor-General of the Union of South Africa as well as the High Commissioner for Southern Africa.<ref name="Magnus 1964, p541"/><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28363 |date=6 May 1910 |page=3162}}</ref> He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George and raised to the peerage as Viscount Gladstone, of the County of Lanark, the same year.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28350 |date=22 March 1910 |page=2029}}</ref>
==Later life== thumb|right|150px|Dorothy Mary Paget in 1901
After his return from South Africa in 1914, Lord Gladstone was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB),<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28842 |date=19 June 1914 |page=4877}}</ref> and spent much of the First World War being involved with various charities and charitable organisations, including the War Refugees Committee, the South African Hospital Fund, and the South African Ambulance in France.<ref name="ODNBHerbert"/><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-south-african-hospital-fund/136855135/ |title=South African Hospital Fund |newspaper=The Times |publication-place=London |page=9 |date=1915-08-27 |access-date=2023-12-15 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-sa-hospital-cannes/32311356/ |title=A Sunshine Hospital |newspaper=The Times |publication-place=London |page=23 |date=1917-11-03 |access-date=2023-12-15 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in 1917.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=30250 |date=24 August 1917 |page=8794}}</ref>
==Family== In 1901 Lord Gladstone married Dorothy Mary, daughter of Sir Richard Paget, 1st Baronet, who was over twenty years his junior. He died in March 1930, aged 76, at his Dane End, Hertfordshire home, and had funeral service in the village's Little Munden Church but is buried in the Family plot at St Deiniol's Church in Hawarden. There were no children from the marriage, and therefore his title became extinct at his death. Viscountess Gladstone died in June 1953.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/hertfordshire-mercury-viscountess-gladst/136853164/ |title=Viscountess Gladstone Dies |newspaper=Hertfordshire Mercury |page=2 |date=1953-06-26 |access-date=2023-12-15 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
==Works== * [https://archive.org/details/afterthirtyyears0000vari/page/n7/mode/2up ''After Thirty Years'' (1928)]
==References== {{reflist|20em}}
==Further reading== * Brown, Kenneth D. “The Appointment of Herbert Gladstone as Liberal Chief Whip in 1899.” in ''Labour and Working-Class Lives: Essays to Celebrate the Life and Work of Chris Wrigley'', edited by Keith Laybourn and John Shepherd, (Manchester University Press, 2017), pp. 31–47, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv18b5p2p.10 online]. * Cooke, A. B., and J. R. Vincent. “Herbert Gladstone, Forster, and Ireland, 1881-2.” ''Irish Historical Studies'' 17#68 (1971), pp. 521–48, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/30005307 online part 1]. ** . “Herbert Gladstone, Forster, and Ireland, 1881-2 (II).” ''Irish Historical Studies'' 18#69 (1972): 74–89. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/30006658 online part 2]. *{{cite book |last=Hesilrige |first=Arthur G. M. |date=1921| title=Debrett's Peerage and Titles of courtesy| url=https://archive.org/details/debrettspeeraget00unse/page/400 | location=London |publisher=Dean & Son|page=400}} * Lloyd, T. O. "The whip as paymaster: Herbert Gladstone and party organization." ''English Historical Review'' 89.353 (1974): 785–813. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/566399 in JSTOR] *Machin, Ian. "Herbert Gladstone" in ''Dictionary of Liberal Biography'', Brack et al. (eds.) Politico's, 1998 *{{citation|last=Magnus|first=Philip|author-link=Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft, 2nd Baronet|title=King Edward The Seventh|publisher=John Murray|location=London|year=1964|isbn=0140026584|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/kingedwardsevent00magn}}
==External links== {{Commons category|Herbert Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone}} * {{Hansard-contribs | mr-herbert-gladstone | Herbert Gladstone }} * {{PM20|FID=pe/006155}}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{s-bef| before = William Ewart Gladstone<br />John Barran<br />William Jackson}} {{s-ttl| title = Member of Parliament for Leeds | with = John Barran <br /> and William Jackson | years = 1880 – 1885}} {{s-non| reason = Constituency abolished}}
{{s-new|constituency}} {{s-ttl| title = Member of Parliament for Leeds West | years = 1885 – Jan. 1910}} {{s-aft| after = Thomas Harvey}} {{s-off}} {{s-bef| before = Henry Northcote}} {{s-ttl| title = Financial Secretary to the War Office | years = 1886}} {{s-aft| after = Hon. St John Brodrick}} {{s-bef| before = Charles Stuart-Wortley}} {{s-ttl| title = Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department | years = 1892–1894}} {{s-aft| after = George W. E. Russell}} {{s-bef| before = George Shaw-Lefevre}} {{s-ttl| title = First Commissioner of Works | years = 1894–1895}} {{s-aft| after = Aretas Akers-Douglas}} {{s-bef| before = Aretas Akers-Douglas}} {{s-ttl| title = Home Secretary | years = 1905–1910}} {{s-aft| after = Winston Churchill}} {{s-ppo}} {{s-bef| before = T. E. Ellis}} {{s-ttl| title = Liberal Chief Whip | years = 1899–1905}} {{s-aft| after = George Whiteley}} {{s-gov}} {{s-new|office}} {{s-ttl| title = Governor-General of the Union of South Africa | years = 1910–1914}} {{s-aft| after = The Viscount Buxton}} {{s-reg|uk}} {{s-new|creation}} {{s-ttl| title = Viscount Gladstone | years = 1910–1930}} {{s-non| reason = Extinct}} {{s-end}}
{{HomeSecretary}} {{South Africa GG}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gladstone, Herbert John Gladstone, 1st Viscount}} Category:1854 births Category:1930 deaths Category:Alumni of University College, Oxford Category:Secretaries of state for the Home Department Herbert Category:English justices of the peace Category:English people of Scottish descent Category:Governors-general of South Africa Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Category:Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:People educated at Eton College Category:UK MPs 1880–1885 Category:UK MPs 1885–1886 Category:UK MPs 1886–1892 Category:UK MPs 1892–1895 Category:UK MPs 1895–1900 Category:UK MPs 1900–1906 Category:UK MPs 1906–1910 Category:UK MPs who were granted peerages Category:Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Herbert Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone Category:Peers created by Edward VII