Cast in Stone

Media metadata | Métadonnées multimédias

William Ewart Gladstone

has biography | a une biographie

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1868-1874; 1880-1885; 1886; 1892-1894).

Gladstone's father, John Gladstone (1764-1851) was one of the largest and wealthiest British absentee slave-owners in the Caribbean, owning several estates in both Guiana and Jamaica. Although William Ewart Gladstone did not claim slavery compensation himself, he supported compensation payouts for slave-owners (including aiding his father in making his own claims), the apprenticeship system, and the West India interest over issues such as sugar duties. Gladstone's position on slavery did change over time, however, and he gradually became more critical towards the institution. His changing relationship on the matter should be seen in the wider context of Victorian Britain's self-representation as an "anti-slavery nation", and its attendant erasure of the legacies of British slavery in the Caribbean. In 2023, several of Gladstone's descendants traveled to Guiana to formally apologise for the family's involvement in slave-ownership and committed to paying reparations in response.

In addition to his own complex relationship to transatlantic slavery, Gladstone's time in office was also shaped by the period of New Imperialism, which saw unprecedented European colonial expansion in Africa and Asia. Although Gladstone and the Liberal Party were known for their opposition to imperialism generally, his premiership involved the British takeover of Egypt in 1882.

was born | est né

29 December 1809

died in | est mort par

19 May 1898

has nationality | a la nationalité

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

has type | est de type

depicted

is referred to by | est référencé par

Wikipedia - William Ewart Gladstone

Wikipedia - Anglo-Egyptian War

Hansard

Art UK

National Portrait Gallery

Legacies of British Slavery - William Ewart Gladstone

Legacies of British Slavery - John Gladstone

Roland Quinault, 'Gladstone and Slavery', The Historical Journal, 52, 2 (2009) 363-383

Jonathan Smith and Paul Lashmar, 'William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery', The Observer (2023)

Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012)