[1] See A. E. Housman on the passage in _Classical Review_ (November
1904).
[2] A different account is given by Mayor on Juvenal iii. 36, who
says: "Those who wished the death of the conquered gladiator turned
their thumbs towards their breasts, as a signal to his opponents to
stab him; those who wished him to be spared, turned their thumbs
downwards, as a signal for dropping the sword."
GLADIOLUS, a genus of monocotyledonous plants, belonging to the natural
order Iridaceae. They are herbaceous plants growing from a solid
fibrous-coated bulb (or corm), with long narrow plaited leaves and a
terminal one-sided spike of generally bright-coloured irregular flowers.
The segments of the limb of the perianth are very unequal, the perianth
tube is curved, funnel-shaped and widening upwards, the segments
equalling or exceeding the tube in length. There are about 150 known
species, a large number of which are South African, but the genus
extends into tropical Africa, forming a characteristic feature of the
mountain vegetation, and as far north as central Europe and western
Asia. One species _G. illyricus_ (sometimes regarded as a variety of _G.
communis_) is found wild in England, in the New Forest and the Isle of
Wight. Some of the species have been cultivated for a long period in
English flower-gardens, where both the introduced species and the modern
varieties bred from them are very ornamental and popular. _G. segetum_
has been cultivated since 1596, and _G. byzantinus_ since 1629, while
many additional species were introduced during the latter half of the
18th century. One of the earlier of the hybrids originated in gardens
was the beautiful _G. Colvillei_, raised in the nursery of Mr Colville
of Chelsea in 1823 from _G. tristis_ fertilized by _G. cardinalis_. In
the first decade of the 19th century, however, the Hon. and Rev. W.
Herbert had successfully crossed the showy _G. cardinalis_ with the
smaller but more free-flowering _G. blandus_, and the result was the
production of a race of great beauty and fertility. Other crosses were
made with _G. tristis_, _G. oppositiflorus_, _G. hirsutus_, _G. alatus_
and _G. psittacinus_; but it was not till after the production of _G.
gandavensis_ that the gladiolus really became a general favourite in
gardens. This fine hybrid was raised in 1837 by M. Bedinghaus, gardener
to the duc d'Aremberg, at Enghien, crossing _G. psittacinus_ and _G.
cardinalis_. There can, however, be little doubt that before the
_gandavensis_ type had become fairly fixed the services of other species
were brought into force, and the most likely of these were _G.
oppositiflorus_ (which shows in the white forms), _G. blandus_ and _G.
ramosus_. Other species may also have been used, but in any case the
_gandavensis_ gladiolus, as we now know it, is the result of much
crossing and inter-crossing between the best forms as they developed (J.
Weathers, _Practical Guide to Garden Plants_). Since that time
innumerable varieties have appeared only to sink into oblivion upon
being replaced by still finer productions.
The modern varieties of gladioli have almost completely driven the
natural species out of gardens, except in botanical collections. The
most gorgeous groups--in addition to the _gandavensis_ type--are those
known under the names of _Lemoinei_, _Childsi_, _nanceianus_ and
_brenchleyensis_. The last-named was raised by a Mr Hooker at Brenchley
in 1848, and although quite distinct in appearance from _gandavensis_,
it undoubtedly had that variety as one of its parents. Owing to the
brilliant scarlet colour of the flowers, this is always a great
favourite for planting in beds. The _Lemoinei_ forms originated at
Nancy, in France, by fertilizing _G. purpureo-auratus_ with pollen from
_G. gandavensis_, the first flower appearing in 1877, and the plants
being put into commerce in 1880. The _Childsi_ gladioli first appeared
in 1882, having been raised at Baden-Baden by Herr Max Leichtlin from
the best forms of _G. gandavensis_ and _G. Saundersi_. The flowers of
the best varieties are of great size and substance, often measuring 7 to
9 in. across, while the range of colour is marvellous, with shades of
grey, purple, scarlet, salmon, crimson, rose, white, pink, yellow, &c.,
often beautifully mottled and blotched in the throat. The plants are
vigorous in growth, often reaching a height of 4 to 5 ft. _G.
nanceianus_ was raised at Nancy by MM. Lemoine and were first put into
commerce in 1889. Next to the _Childsi_ group they are the most
beautiful, and have the blood of the best forms of _G. Saundersi_ and
_G. Lemoinei_ in their veins. The plants are quite as hardy as the
_gandavensis_ hybrids, and the colours of the flowers are almost as
brilliant and varied in hue as those of the _Childsi_ section.
A deep and rather stiff sandy loam is the best soil for the gladiolus,
and this should be trenched up in October and enriched with
well-decomposed manure, consisting partly of cow dung, the manure
being disposed altogether below the corms, a layer at the bottom of
the upper trench, say 9 in. from the surface, and another layer at
double that depth. The corms should be planted in succession at
intervals of two or three weeks through the months of March, April and
May; about 3 to 5 in. deep and at least 1 ft. apart, a little pure
soil or sand being laid over each before the earth is closed in about
them, an arrangement which may be advantageously followed with
bulbous plants generally. In hot summer weather they should have a
good mulching of well-decayed manure, and, as soon as the flower
spikes are produced, liquid manure may occasionally be given them with
advantage.
The gladiolus is easily raised from seeds, which should be sown in
March or April in pots of rich soil placed in slight heat, the pots
being kept near the glass after they begin to grow, and the plants
being gradually hardened to permit their being placed out-of-doors in
a sheltered spot for the summer. Modern growers often grow the seeds
in the open in April on a nicely prepared bed in drills about 6 in.
apart and 1/2 in. deep, covering them with finely sifted gritty mould.
The seed bed is then pressed down evenly and firmly, watered
occasionally and kept free from weeds during the summer. In October
they will have ripened off, and must be taken out of the soil, and
stored in paper bags in a dry room secure from frost. They will have
made little bulbs from the size of a hazel nut downwards, according to
their vigour. In the spring they should be planted like the old bulbs,
and the larger ones will flower during the season, while the smaller
ones must be again harvested and planted out as before. The time
occupied from the sowing of the seed until the plant attains its full
strength is from three to four years. The approved sorts, which are
identified by name, are multiplied by means of bulblets or offsets or
"spawn," which form around the principal bulb or corm; but in this
they vary greatly, some kinds furnishing abundant increase and soon
becoming plentiful, while others persistently refuse to yield offsets.
The stately habit and rich glowing colours of the modern gladioli
render them exceedingly valuable as decorative plants during the late
summer months. They are, moreover, very desirable and useful flowers
for cutting for the purpose of room decoration, for while the blossoms
themselves last fresh for some days if cut either early in the morning
or late in the evening, the undeveloped buds open in succession, if
the stalks are kept in water, so that a cut spike will go on blooming
for some time.
GLADSHEIM (Old Norse _Gladsheimr_), in Scandinavian mythology, the
region of joy and home of Odin. Valhalla, the paradise whither the
heroes who fell in battle were escorted, was situated there.
GLADSTONE, JOHN HALL (1827-1902), English chemist, was born at Hackney,
London, on the 7th of March 1827. From childhood he showed great
aptitude for science; geology was his favourite subject, but since this
in his father's opinion did not afford a career of promise, he devoted
himself to chemistry, which he studied under Thomas Graham at University
College, London, and Liebig at Giessen, where he graduated as Ph.D. in
1847. In 1850 he became chemical lecturer at St Thomas's hospital, and
three years later was elected a fellow of the Royal Society at the
unusually early age of twenty-six. From 1858 to 1861 he served on the
royal commission on lighthouses, and from 1864 to 1868 was a member of
the war office committee on gun-cotton. From 1874 to 1877 he was
Fullerian professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution, in 1874 he
was chosen first president of the Physical Society, and in 1877-1879 he
was president of the Chemical Society. In 1897 the Royal Society
recognized his fifty years of scientific work by awarding him the Davy
medal. Dr Gladstone's researches were large in number and wide in range,
dealing to a great extent with problems that lie on the border-line
between physics and chemistry. Thus a number of his inquiries, and those
not the least important, were partly chemical, partly optical. He
determined the optical constants of hundreds of substances, with the
object of discovering whether any of the elements possesses more than
one atomic refraction. Again, he investigated the connexion between the
optical behaviour, density and chemical composition of ethereal oils,
and the relation between molecular magnetic rotation and the refraction
and dispersion of nitrogenous compounds. So early as 1856 he showed the
importance of the spectroscope in chemical research, and he was one of
the first to notice that the Fraunhofer spectrum at sunrise and sunset
differs from that at midday, his conclusion being that the earth's
atmosphere must be responsible for many of its absorption lines, which
indeed were subsequently traced to the oxygen and water-vapour in the
air. Another portion of his work was of an electro-chemical character.
His studies, with Alfred Tribe (1840-1885) and W. Hibbert, in the
chemistry of the storage battery, have added largely to our knowledge,
while the "copper-zinc couple," with which his name is associated
together with that of Tribe, among other things, afforded a simple means
of preparing certain organo-metallic compounds, and thus promoted
research in branches of organic chemistry where those bodies are
especially useful. Mention may also be made of his work on phosphorus,
on explosive substances, such as iodide of nitrogen, gun-cotton and the
fulminates, on the influence of mass in the process of chemical
reactions, and on the effect of carbonic acid on the germination of
plants. Dr Gladstone always took a great interest in educational
questions, and from 1873 to 1894 he was a member of the London School
Board. He was also a member of the Christian Evidence Society, and an
early supporter of the Young Men's Christian Association. His death
occurred suddenly in London on the 6th of October 1902.
GLADSTONE, WILLIAM EWART (1809-1898), British statesman, was born on the
29th of December 1809 at No. 62 Rodney Street, Liverpool. His
forefathers were Gledstanes of Gledstanes, in the upper ward of
Lanarkshire; or in Scottish phrase, Gledstanes of that Ilk. As years
went on their estates dwindled, and by the beginning of the 17th century
Gledstanes was sold. The adjacent property of Arthurshiel remained in
the hands of the family for nearly a hundred years longer. Then the son
of the last Gledstanes of Arthurshiel removed to Biggar, where he opened
the business of a maltster. His grandson, Thomas Gladstone (for so the
name was modified), became a corn-merchant at Leith. He happened to send
his eldest son, John, to Liverpool to sell a cargo of grain there, and
the energy and aptitude of the young man attracted the favourable notice
of a leading corn-merchant of Liverpool, who recommended him to settle
in that city. Beginning his commercial career as a clerk in his patron's
house, John Gladstone lived to become one of the merchant-princes of
Liverpool, a baronet and a member of parliament. He died in 1851 at the
age of eighty-seven. Sir John Gladstone was a pure Scotsman, a Lowlander
by birth and descent. He married Anne, daughter of Andrew Robertson of
Stornoway, sometime provost of Dingwall. Provost Robertson belonged to
the Clan Donachie, and by this marriage the robust and business-like
qualities of the Lowlander were blended with the poetic imagination, the
sensibility and fire of the Gael.
Childhood and education.
John and Anne Gladstone had six children. The fourth son, William Ewart,
was named after a merchant of Liverpool who was his father's friend. He
seems to have been a remarkably good child, and much beloved at home. In
1818 or 1819 Mrs Gladstone, who belonged to the Evangelical school, said
in a letter to a friend, that she believed her son William had been
"truly converted to God." After some tuition at the vicarage of
Seaforth, a watering-place near Liverpool, the boy went to Eton in 1821.
His tutor was the Rev. Henry Hartopp Knapp. His brothers, Thomas and
Robertson Gladstone, were already at Eton. Thomas was in the fifth form,
and William, who was placed in the middle remove of the fourth form,
became his eldest brother's fag. He worked hard at his classical
lessons, and supplemented the ordinary business of the school by
studying mathematics in the holidays. Mr Hawtrey, afterwards headmaster,
commended a copy of his Latin verses, and "sent him up for good"; and
this experience first led the young student to associate intellectual
work with the ideas of ambition and success. He was not a fine scholar,
in that restricted sense of the term which implies a special aptitude
for turning English into Greek and Latin, or for original versification
in the classical languages. "His composition," we read, "was stiff," but
he was imbued with the substance of his authors; and a contemporary who
was in the sixth form with him recorded that "when there were thrilling
passages of Virgil or Homer, or difficult passages in the _Scriptores
Graeci_, to translate, he or Lord Arthur Hervey was generally called up
to edify the class with quotation or translation." By common consent he
was pre-eminently God-fearing, orderly and conscientious. "At Eton,"
said Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury, "I was a thoroughly idle boy, but I
was saved from some worse things by getting to know Gladstone." His most
intimate friend was Arthur Hallam, by universal acknowledgment the most
remarkable Etonian of his day; but he was not generally popular or even
widely known. He was seen to the greatest advantage, and was most
thoroughly at home, in the debates of the Eton Society, learnedly called
"The Literati," and vulgarly "Pop," and in the editorship of the _Eton
Miscellany_. He left Eton at Christmas 1827. He read for six months with
private tutors, and in October 1828 went up to Christ Church, where, in
the following year, he was nominated to a studentship.
At Oxford Gladstone read steadily, but not laboriously, till he neared
his final schools. During the latter part of his undergraduate career he
took a brief but brilliant share in the proceedings of the Union, of
which he was successively secretary and president. He made his first
speech on the 11th of February 1830. Brought up in the nurture and
admonition of Canning, he defended Roman Catholic emancipation, and
thought the duke of Wellington's government unworthy of national
confidence. He opposed the removal of Jewish disabilities, arguing, we
are told by a contemporary, "on the part of the Evangelicals," and
pleaded for the gradual extinction, in preference to the immediate
abolition, of slavery. But his great achievement was a speech against
the Whig Reform Bill. One who heard this famous discourse says: "Most of
the speakers rose, more or less, above their usual level, but when Mr
Gladstone sat down we all of us felt that an epoch in our lives had
occurred. It certainly was the finest speech of his that I ever heard."
Bishop Charles Wordsworth said that his experience of Gladstone at this
time "made me (and I doubt not others also) feel no less sure than of my
own existence that Gladstone, our then Christ Church undergraduate,
would one day rise to be prime minister of England." In December 1831
Gladstone crowned his career by taking a double first-class. Lord
Halifax (1800-1885) used to say, with reference to the increase in the
amount of reading requisite for the highest honours: "My double-first
must have been a better thing than Peel's; Gladstone's must have been
better than mine."
Entry into parliament.
Now came the choice of a profession. Deeply anxious to make the best use
of his life, Gladstone turned his thoughts to holy orders. But his
father had determined to make him a politician. Quitting Oxford in the
spring of 1832, Gladstone spent six months in Italy, learning the
language and studying art. In the following September he was suddenly
recalled to England, to undertake his first parliamentary campaign. The
fifth duke of Newcastle was one of the chief potentates of the High Tory
party. His frank claim to "do what he liked with his own" in the
representation of Newark has given him a place in political history. But
that claim had been rudely disputed by the return of a Radical lawyer at
the election of 1831. The Duke was anxious to obtain a capable candidate
to aid him in regaining his ascendancy over the rebellious borough. His
son, Lord Lincoln, had heard Gladstone's speech against the Reform Bill
delivered in the Oxford Union, and had written home that "a man had
uprisen in Israel." At his suggestion the duke invited Gladstone to
stand for Newark in the Tory interest against Mr Serjeant Wilde,
afterwards Lord Chancellor Truro. The last of the Unreformed parliaments
was dissolved on the 3rd of December 1832. Gladstone, addressing the
electors of Newark, said that he was bound by the opinions of no man and
no party, but felt it a duty to watch and resist that growing desire for
change which threatened to produce "along with partial good a melancholy
preponderance of mischief." The first principle to which he looked for
national salvation was, that the "duties of governors are strictly and
peculiarly religious, and that legislatures, like individuals, are bound
to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the high truths they have
acknowledged." The condition of the poor demanded special attention;
labour should receive adequate remuneration; and he thought favourably
of the "allotment of cottage grounds." He regarded slavery as sanctioned
by Holy Scripture, but the slaves ought to be educated and gradually
emancipated. The contest resulted in his return at the head of the poll.
The question of slavery.
The first Reformed parliament met on the 29th of January 1833, and the
young member for Newark took his seat for the first time in an assembly
which he was destined to adorn, delight and astonish for more than half
a century. His maiden speech was delivered on the 3rd of June in reply
to what was almost a personal challenge. The colonial secretary, Mr
Stanley, afterwards Lord Derby, brought forward a series of resolutions
in favour of the extinction of slavery in the British colonies. On the
first night of the debate Lord Howick, afterwards Lord Grey, who had
been under-secretary for the Colonies, and who opposed the resolutions
as proceeding too gradually towards abolition, cited certain occurrences
on Sir John Gladstone's plantation in Demerara to illustrate his
contention that the system of slave-labour in the West Indies was
attended by great mortality among the slaves. Gladstone in his
reply--his first speech in the House--avowed that he had a pecuniary
interest in the question, "and, if he might say so much without exciting
suspicion, a still deeper interest in it as a question of justice, of
humanity and of religion." If there had recently been a high mortality
on his father's plantation, it was due to the age of the slaves rather
than to any peculiar hardship in their lot. It was true that the
particular system of cultivation practised in Demerara was more trying
than some others; but then it might be said that no two trades were
equally conducive to health. Steel-grinding was notoriously unhealthy,
and manufacturing processes generally were less favourable to life than
agricultural. While strongly condemning cruelty, he declared himself an
advocate of emancipation, but held that it should be effected gradually,
and after due preparation. The slaves must be religiously educated, and
stimulated to profitable industry. The owners of emancipated slaves were
entitled to receive compensation from parliament, because it was
parliament that had established this description of property. "I do
not," said Gladstone, "view property as an abstract thing; it is the
creature of civil society. By the legislature it is granted, and by the
legislature it is destroyed." On the following day King William IV.
wrote to Lord Althorp: "The king rejoices that a young member has come
forward in so promising a manner as Viscount Althorp states Mr W. E.
Gladstone to have done." In the same session Gladstone spoke on the
question of bribery and corruption at Liverpool, and on the
temporalities of the Irish Church. In the session of 1834 his most
important performance was a speech in opposition to Hume's proposal to
throw the universities open to Dissenters.
On the 10th of November 1834 Lord Althorp succeeded to his father's
peerage, and thereby vacated the leadership of the House of Commons. The
prime minister, Lord Melbourne, submitted to the king a choice of names
for the chancellorship of the exchequer and leadership of the House of
Commons; but his majesty announced that, having lost the services of
Lord Althorp as leader of the House of Commons, he could feel no
confidence in the stability of Lord Melbourne's government, and that it
was his intention to send for the duke of Wellington. The duke took
temporary charge of affairs, but Peel was felt to be indispensable. He
had gone abroad after the session, and was now in Rome. As soon as he
could be brought back he formed an administration, and appointed
Gladstone to a junior lordship of the treasury. Parliament was dissolved
on the 29th of December. Gladstone was returned unopposed, this time in
conjunction with the Liberal lawyer whom he had beaten at the last
election. The new parliament met on the 19th of February 1835. The
elections had given the Liberals a considerable majority. Immediately
after the meeting of parliament Gladstone was promoted to the
under-secretaryship for the colonies, where his official chief was Lord
Aberdeen. The administration was not long-lived. On the 30th of March
Lord John Russell moved a resolution in favour of an inquiry into the
temporalities of the Irish Church, with the intention of applying the
surplus to general education without distinction of religious creed.
This was carried against ministers by a majority of thirty-three. On the
8th of April Sir Robert Peel resigned, and the under-secretary for the
colonies of course followed his chief into private life.
Literary work.
Released from the labours of office, Gladstone, living in chambers in
the Albany, practically divided his time between his parliamentary
duties and study. Then, as always, his constant companions were Homer
and Dante, and it is recorded that he read the whole of St Augustine, in
twenty-two octavo volumes. He used to frequent the services at St
James's, Piccadilly, and Margaret chapel, since better known as All
Saints', Margaret Street. On the 20th of June 1837 King William IV.
died, and Parliament, having been prorogued by the young queen in
person, was dissolved on the 17th of the following month. Simply on the
strength of his parliamentary reputation Gladstone was nominated,
without his consent, for Manchester, and was placed at the bottom of the
poll; but, having been at the same time nominated at Newark, was again
returned. The year 1838 claims special note in a record of Gladstone's
life, because it witnessed the appearance of his famous work on _The
State in its Relations with the Church_. He had left Oxford just before
the beginning of that Catholic revival which has transfigured both the
inner spirit and the outward aspect of the Church of England. But the
revival was now in full strength. The _Tracts for the Times_ were
saturating England with new influences. The movement counted no more
enthusiastic or more valuable disciple than Gladstone. Its influence had
reached him through his friendships, notably with two Fellows of
Merton--Mr James Hope, who became Mr Hope-Scott of Abbotsford, and the
Rev. H. E. Manning, afterwards cardinal archbishop. _The State in its
Relations with the Church_ was his practical contribution to a
controversy in which his deepest convictions were involved. He contended
that the Church, as established by law, was to be "maintained for its
truth," and that this principle, if good for England, was good also for
Ireland.
On the 25th of July 1839 Gladstone was married at Hawarden to Miss
Catherine Glynne, sister, and in her issue heir, of Sir Stephen Glynne,
ninth and last baronet of that name. In 1840 he published _Church
Principles considered in their Results_.
Enters the cabinet.
Parliament was dissolved in June 1841. Gladstone was again returned for
Newark. The general election resulted in a Tory majority of eighty. Sir
Robert Peel became prime minister, and made the member for Newark
vice-president of the Board of Trade. An inevitable change is from this
time to be traced in the topics of Gladstone's parliamentary speaking.
Instead of discoursing on the corporate conscience of the state and the
endowments of the Church, the importance of Christian education, and the
theological unfitness of the Jews to sit in parliament, he is solving
business-like problems about foreign tariffs and the exportation of
machinery; waxing eloquent over the regulation of railways, and a
graduated tax on corn; subtle on the monetary merits of half-farthings,
and great in the mysterious lore of _quassia_ and _cocculus indicus_. In
1842 he had a principal hand in the preparation of the revised tariff,
by which duties were abolished or sensibly diminished in the case of
1200 duty-paying articles. In defending the new scheme he spoke
incessantly, and amazed the House by his mastery of detail, his intimate
acquaintance with the commercial needs of the country, and his
inexhaustible power of exposition. In 1843 Gladstone, succeeding Lord
Ripon as president of the Board of Trade, became a member of the cabinet
at the age of thirty-three. He has recorded the fact that "the very
first opinion which he ever was called upon to give in cabinet" was an
opinion in favour of withdrawing the bill providing education for
children in factories, to which vehement opposition was offered by the
Dissenters, on the ground that it was too favourable to the Established
Church.
Maynooth grant: resignation.
At the opening of the session of 1845 the government, in pursuance of a
promise made to Irish members that they would deal with the question of
academical education in Ireland, proposed to establish non-sectarian
colleges in that country and to make a large addition to the grant to
the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth. Gladstone resigned office, in
order, as he announced in the debate on the address, to form "not only
an honest, but likewise an independent and an unsuspected judgment," on
the plan to be submitted by the government with respect to Maynooth. His
subsequent defence of the proposed grant, on the ground that it would be
improper and unjust to exclude the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland from
a "more indiscriminating support" which the state might give to various
religious beliefs, was regarded by men of less sensitive conscience as
only proving that there had been no adequate cause for his resignation.
Before he resigned he completed a second revised tariff, carrying
considerably further the principles on which he had acted in the earlier
revision of 1842.
Free trade.
In the autumn of 1845 the failure of the potato crop in Ireland
threatened a famine, and convinced Sir Robert Peel that all restrictions
on the importation of food must be at once suspended. He was supported
by only three members of the cabinet, and resigned on the 5th of
December. Lord John Russell, who had just announced his conversion to
total and immediate repeal of the Corn Laws, declined the task of
forming an administration, and on the 20th of December Sir Robert Peel
resumed office. Lord Stanley refused to re-enter the government, and his
place as secretary of state for the colonies was offered to and accepted
by Gladstone. He did not offer himself for re-election at Newark, and
remained outside the House of Commons during the great struggle of the
coming year. It was a curious irony of fate which excluded him from
parliament at this crisis, for it seems unquestionable that he was the
most advanced Free Trader in Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet. The Corn Bill
passed the House of Lords on the 28th of June 1846, and on the same day
the government were beaten in the House of Commons on an Irish Coercion
Bill. Lord John Russell became prime minister, and Gladstone retired for
a season into private life. Early in 1847 it was announced that one of
the two members for the university of Oxford intended to retire at the
general election, and Gladstone was proposed for the vacant seat. The
representation of the university had been pronounced by Canning to be
the most coveted prize of public life, and Gladstone himself confessed
that he "desired it with an almost passionate fondness." Parliament was
dissolved on the 23rd of July 1847. The nomination at Oxford took place
on the 29th of July, and at the close of the poll Sir Robert Inglis
stood at the head, with Gladstone as his colleague.
Naple prisons.
The three years 1847, 1848, 1849 were for Gladstone a period of mental
growth, of transition, of development. A change was silently proceeding,
which was not completed for twenty years. "There have been," he wrote in
later days to Bishop Wilberforce, "two great deaths, or transmigrations
of spirit, in my political existence--one, very slow, the breaking of
ties with my original party." This was now in progress. In the winter of
1850-1851 Gladstone spent between three and four months at Naples, where
he learned that more than half the chamber of deputies, who had followed
the party of Opposition, had been banished or imprisoned; that a large
number, probably not less than 20,000, of the citizens had been
imprisoned on charges of political disaffection, and that in prison they
were subjected to the grossest cruelties. Having made careful
investigations, Gladstone, on the 7th of April 1851, addressed an open
letter to Lord Aberdeen, bringing an elaborate, detailed and horrible
indictment against the rulers of Naples, especially as regards the
arrangements of their prisons and the treatment of persons confined in
them for political offences. The publication of this letter caused a
wide sensation in England and abroad, and profoundly agitated the court
of Naples. In reply to a question in the House of Commons, Lord
Palmerston accepted and adopted Gladstone's statement, expressed keen
sympathy with the cause which he had espoused, and sent a copy of his
letter to the queen's representative at every court of Europe. A second
letter and a third followed, and their effect, though for a while
retarded, was unmistakably felt in the subsequent revolution which
created a free and united Italy.
Gladstone and Disraeli.
In February 1852 the Whig government was defeated on a Militia Bill, and
Lord John Russell was succeeded by Lord Derby, formerly Lord Stanley,
with Mr Disraeli, who now entered office for the first time, as
chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Mr
Disraeli introduced and carried a makeshift budget, and the government
tided over the session, and dissolved parliament on the 1st of July
1852. There was some talk of inducing Gladstone to join the Tory
government, and on the 29th of November Lord Malmesbury dubiously
remarked, "I cannot make out Gladstone, who seems to me a dark horse."
In the following month the chancellor of the exchequer produced his
second budget. The government redeemed their pledge to do something for
the relief of the agricultural interest by reducing the duty on malt.
This created a deficit, which they repaired by doubling the duty on
inhabited houses. The voices of criticism were heard simultaneously on
every side. The debate waxed fast and furious. In defending his
proposals Mr Disraeli gave full scope to his most characteristic gifts;
he pelted his opponents right and left with sarcasms, taunts and
epigrams. Gladstone delivered an unpremeditated reply, which has ever
since been celebrated. Tradition says that he "foamed at the mouth." The
speech of the chancellor of the exchequer, he said, must be answered "on
the moment." It must be "tried by the laws of decency and propriety." He
indignantly rebuked his rival's language and demeanour. He tore his
financial scheme to ribbons. It was the beginning of a duel which lasted
till death removed one of the combatants from the political arena.
"Those who had thought it impossible that any impression could be made
upon the House after the speech of Mr Disraeli had to acknowledge that a
yet greater impression was produced by the unprepared reply of Mr
Gladstone." The House divided, and the government were left in a
minority of nineteen. Lord Derby resigned.
Chancellor of the exchequer.
The new government was a coalition of Whigs and Peelites. Lord Aberdeen
became prime minister, and Gladstone chancellor of the exchequer. Having
been returned again for the university of Oxford, he entered on the
active duties of a great office for which he was pre-eminently fitted by
an unique combination of financial, administrative and rhetorical gifts.
His first budget was introduced on the 18th of April 1853. It tended to
make life easier and cheaper for large and numerous classes; it promised
wholesale remissions of taxation; it lessened the charges on common
processes of business, on locomotion, on postal communication, and on
several articles of general consumption. The deficiency thus created was
to be met by a "succession-duty," or application of the legacy-duty to
real property; by an increase of the duty on spirits; and by the
extension of the income-tax, at 5d. in the pound, to all incomes between
L100 and L150. The speech in which these proposals were introduced held
the House spellbound. Here was an orator who could apply all the
resources of a burnished rhetoric to the elucidation of figures; who
could sweep the widest horizon of the financial future, and yet stoop to
bestow the minutest attention on the microcosm of penny stamps and
post-horses. Above all, the chancellor's mode of handling the income-tax
attracted interest and admiration. It was a searching analysis of the
financial and moral grounds on which the impost rested, and a historical
justification and eulogy of it. Yet, great as had been the services of
the tax at a time of national danger, Gladstone could not consent to
retain it as a part of the permanent and ordinary finances of the
country. It was objectionable on account of its unequal incidence, of
the harassing investigation into private affairs which it entailed, and
of the frauds to which it inevitably led. Therefore, having served its
turn, it was to be extinguished in 1860. The scheme astonished,
interested and attracted the country. The queen and Prince Albert wrote
to congratulate the chancellor of the exchequer. Public authorities and
private friends joined in the chorus of eulogy. The budget demonstrated
at once its author's absolute mastery over figures and the persuasive
force of his expository gift. It established the chancellor of the
exchequer as the paramount financier of his day, and it was only the
first of a long series of similar performances, different, of course, in
detail, but alike in their bold outlines and brilliant handling.
Looking back on a long life of strenuous exertion, Gladstone declared
that the work of preparing his proposals about the succession-duty and
carrying them through Parliament was by far the most laborious task
which he ever performed.
War between Great Britain and Russia was declared on the 27th of March
1854, and it thus fell to the lot of the most pacific of ministers, the
devotee of retrenchment, and the anxious cultivator of all industrial
arts, to prepare a war budget, and to meet as well as he might the
exigencies of a conflict which had so cruelly dislocated all the
ingenious devices of financial optimism. No amount of skill in the
manipulation of figures, no ingenuity in shifting fiscal burdens, could
prevent the addition of forty-one millions to the national debt, or
could countervail the appalling mismanagement at the seat of war.
Gladstone declared that the state of the army in the Crimea was a
"matter for weeping all day and praying all night." As soon as
parliament met in January 1855 J. A. Roebuck, the Radical member for
Sheffield, gave notice that he would move for a select committee "to
inquire into the condition of our army before Sevastopol, and into the
conduct of those departments of the government whose duty it has been to
minister to the wants of that army." On the same day Lord John Russell,
without announcing his intention to his colleagues, resigned his office
as president of the council sooner than attempt the defence of the
government. Gladstone, in defending the government against Roebuck,
rebuked in dignified and significant terms the conduct of men who,
"hoping to escape from punishment, ran away from duty." On the division
on Mr Roebuck's motion the government was beaten by the unexpected
majority of 157.
Lord Palmerston became prime minister. The Peelites joined him, and
Gladstone resumed office as chancellor of the exchequer. A shrewd
observer at the time pronounced him indispensable. "Any other chancellor
of the exchequer would be torn in bits by him." The government was
formed on the understanding that Mr Roebuck's proposed committee was to
be resisted. Lord Palmerston soon saw that further resistance was
useless; his Peelite colleagues stuck to their text, and, within three
weeks after resuming office, Gladstone, Sir James Graham and Mr Sidney
Herbert resigned. Gladstone once said of himself and his Peelite
colleagues, during the period of political isolation, that they were
like roving icebergs on which men could not land with safety, but with
which ships might come into perilous collision. He now applied himself
specially to financial criticism, and was perpetually in conflict with
the chancellor of the exchequer, Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
In 1858 Lord Palmerston was succeeded by Lord Derby at the head of a
Conservative administration, and Gladstone accepted the temporary office
of high commissioner extraordinary to the Ionian Islands. Returning to
England for the session of 1859, he found himself involved in the
controversy which arose over a mild Reform Bill introduced by the
government. They were defeated on the second reading of the bill,
Gladstone voting with them. A dissolution immediately followed, and
Gladstone was again returned unopposed for the university of Oxford. As
soon as the new parliament met a vote of want of confidence in the
ministry was moved in the House of Commons. In the critical division
which ensued Gladstone voted with the government, who were left in a
minority. Lord Derby resigned. Lord Palmerston became prime minister,
and asked Gladstone to join him as chancellor of the exchequer. To vote
confidence in an imperilled ministry, and on its defeat to take office
with the rivals who have defeated it, is a manoeuvre which invites the
reproach of tergiversation. But Gladstone risked the reproach, accepted
the office and had a sharp tussle for his seat. He emerged from the
struggle victorious, and entered on his duties with characteristic zeal.
The prince consort wrote: "Gladstone is now the real leader in the House
of Commons, and works with an energy and vigour altogether incredible."
Budget of 1860.
The budget of 1860 was marked by two distinctive features. It asked the
sanction of parliament for the commercial treaty which Cobden had
privately arranged with the emperor Napoleon, and it proposed to abolish
the duty on paper. The French treaty was carried, but the abolition of
the paper-duty was defeated in the House of Lords. Gladstone justly
regarded the refusal to remit a duty as being in effect an act of
taxation, and therefore as an infringement of the rights of the House of
Commons. The proposal to abolish the paper-duty was revived in the
budget of 1861, the chief proposals of which, instead of being divided,
as in previous years, into several bills, were included in one. By this
device the Lords were obliged to acquiesce in the repeal of the
paper-duty.
During Lord Palmerston's last administration, which lasted from 1859 to
1865, Gladstone was by far the most brilliant and most conspicuous
figure in the cabinet. Except in finance, he was not able to accomplish
much, for he was met and thwarted at every turn by his chief's
invincible hostility to change; but the more advanced section of the
Liberal party began to look upon him as their predestined leader. In
1864, in a debate on a private member's bill for extending the suffrage,
he declared that the burden of proof lay on those "who would exclude
forty-nine fiftieths of the working-classes from the franchise." In
1865, in a debate on the condition of the Irish Church Establishment, he
declared that the Irish Church, as it then stood, was in a false
position, inasmuch as it ministered only to one-eighth or one-ninth of
the whole community. But just in proportion as Gladstone advanced in
favour with the Radical party he lost the confidence of his own
constituents. Parliament was dissolved in July 1865, and the university
elected Mr Gathorne Hardy in his place.
Leader of House of Commons.
Gladstone at once turned his steps towards South Lancashire, where he
was returned with two Tories above him. The result of the general
election was to retain Lord Palmerston's government in power, but on the
18th of October the old prime minister died. He was succeeded by Lord
Russell, and Gladstone, retaining the chancellorship of the exchequer,
became for the first time leader of the House of Commons. Lord Russell,
backed by Gladstone, persuaded his colleagues to consent to a moderate
Reform Bill, and the task of piloting this measure through the House of
Commons fell to Gladstone. The speech in which he wound up the debate on
the second reading was one of the finest, if not indeed the very finest,
which he ever delivered. But it was of no practical avail. The
government were defeated on an amendment in committee, and thereupon
resigned. Lord Derby became prime minister, with Disraeli as chancellor
of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. On the 18th of
March 1867 the Tory Reform Bill, which ended in establishing Household
Suffrage in the boroughs, was introduced, and was read a second time
without a division. After undergoing extensive alterations in committee
at the hands of the Liberals and Radicals, the bill became law in
August.
Leader of Liberal party.
At Christmas 1867 Lord Russell announced his final retirement from
active politics, and Gladstone was recognized by acclamation as leader
of the Liberal party. Nominally he was in Opposition; but his party
formed the majority of the House of Commons, and could beat the
government whenever they chose to mass their forces. Gladstone seized
the opportunity to give effect to convictions which had long been
forming in his mind. Early in the session he brought in a bill
abolishing compulsory church-rates, and this passed into law. On the
16th of March, in a debate raised by an Irish member, he declared that
in his judgment the Irish Church, as a State Church, must cease to
exist. Immediately afterwards he embodied this opinion in a series of
resolutions concerning the Irish Church Establishment, and carried them
against the government. Encouraged by this triumph, he brought in a Bill
to prevent any fresh appointments in the Irish Church, and this also
passed the Commons, though it was defeated in the Lords. Parliament was
dissolved on the 11th of November. A single issue was placed before the
country--Was the Irish Church to be, or not to be, disestablished? The
response was an overwhelming affirmative. Gladstone, who had been doubly
nominated, was defeated in Lancashire, but was returned for Greenwich.
He chose this moment for publishing a _Chapter of Autobiography_, in
which he explained and justified his change of opinion with regard to
the Irish Church.
Prime Minister: Irish Church disestablishment.
On the 2nd of December Disraeli, who had succeeded Lord Derby as premier
in the preceding February, announced that he and his colleagues,
recognizing their defeat, had resigned without waiting for a formal vote
of the new parliament. On the following day Gladstone was summoned to
Windsor, and commanded by the queen to form an administration. The great
task to which the new prime minister immediately addressed himself was
the disestablishment of the Irish Church. The queen wrote to Archbishop
Tait that the subject of the Irish Church "made her very anxious," but
that Mr Gladstone "showed the most conciliatory disposition." "The
government can do nothing that would tend to raise a suspicion of their
sincerity in proposing to disestablish the Irish Church, and to withdraw
all state endowments from all religious communions in Ireland; but, were
these conditions accepted, all other matters connected with the question
might, the queen thinks, become the subject of discussion and
negotiation." The bill was drawn and piloted on the lines thus
indicated, and became law on the 26th of July. In the session of 1870
Gladstone's principal work was the Irish Land Act, of which the object
was to protect the tenant against eviction as long as he paid his rent,
and to secure to him the value of any improvements which his own
industry had made. In the following session Religious Tests in the
universities were abolished, and a bill to establish secret voting was
carried through the House of Commons. This was thrown out by the Lords,
but became law a year later. The House of Lords threw out a bill to
abolish the purchase of commissions in the army. Gladstone found that
purchase existed only by royal sanction, and advised the queen to issue
a royal warrant cancelling, on and after the 1st of November following,
all regulations authorizing the purchase of commissions.
A Dissolution of 1874.
In 1873 Gladstone set his hand to the third of three great Irish reforms
to which he had pledged himself. His scheme for the establishment of a
university which should satisfy both Roman Catholics and Protestants met
with general disapproval. The bill was thrown out by three votes, and
Gladstone resigned. The queen sent for Disraeli, who declined to take
office in a minority of the House of Commons, so Gladstone was compelled
to resume. But he and his colleagues were now, in Disraelitish phrase,
"exhausted volcanoes." Election after election went wrong. The
government had lost favour with the public, and was divided against
itself. There were resignations and rumours of resignations. When the
session of 1873 had come to an end Gladstone took the chancellorship of
the exchequer, and, as high authorities contended, vacated his seat by
doing so. The point was obviously one of vital importance; and we learn
from Lord Selborne, who was lord chancellor at the time, that Gladstone
"was sensible of the difficulty of either taking his seat in the usual
manner at the opening of the session, or letting ... the necessary
arrangements for business in the House of Commons be made in the prime
minister's absence. A dissolution was the only escape." On the 23rd of
January 1874 Gladstone announced the dissolution in an address to his
constituents, declaring that the authority of the government had now
"sunk below the point necessary for the due defence and prosecution of
the public interest." He promised that, if he were returned to power, he
would repeal the income-tax. This bid for popularity failed, the general
election resulting in a Tory majority of forty-six. Gladstone kept his
seat for Greenwich, but was only second on the poll. Following the
example of Disraeli in 1868, he resigned without meeting parliament.
Temporary retirement.
Midlothian campaign.
For some years he had alluded to his impending retirement from public
life, saying that he was "strong against going on in politics to the
end." He was now sixty-four, and his life had been a continuous
experience of exhausting labour. On the 12th of March 1874 he informed
Lord Granville that he could give only occasional attendance in the
House of Commons during the current session, and that he must "reserve
his entire freedom to divest himself of all the responsibilities of
leadership at no distant date." His most important intervention in the
debates of 1874 was when he opposed Archbishop Tait's Public Worship
Bill. This was read a second time without a division, but in committee
Gladstone enjoyed some signal triumphs over his late solicitor-general,
Sir William Harcourt, who had warmly espoused the cause of the
government and the bill. At the beginning of 1875 Gladstone carried into
effect the resolution which he had announced a year before, and formally
resigned the leadership of the Liberal party. He was succeeded by Lord
Hartington, afterwards duke of Devonshire. The learned leisure which
Gladstone had promised himself when released from official
responsibility was not of long duration. In the autumn of 1875 an
insurrection broke out in Bulgaria, and the suppression of it by the
Turks was marked by massacres and outrages. Public indignation was
aroused by what were known as the "Bulgarian atrocities," and Gladstone
flung himself into the agitation against Turkey with characteristic
zeal. At public meetings, in the press, and in parliament he denounced
the Turkish government and its champion, Disraeli, who had now become
Lord Beaconsfield. Lord Hartington soon found himself pushed aside from
his position of titular leadership. For four years, from 1876 to 1880,
Gladstone maintained the strife with a courage, a persistence and a
versatility which raised the enthusiasm of his followers to the highest
pitch. The county of Edinburgh, or Midlothian, which he contested
against the dominant influence of the duke of Buccleuch, was the scene
of the most astonishing exertions. As the general election approached
the only question submitted to the electors was--Do you approve or
condemn Lord Beaconsfield's foreign policy? The answer was given at
Easter 1880, when the Liberals were returned by an overwhelming majority
over Tories and Home Rulers combined. Gladstone was now member for
Midlothian, having retired from Greenwich at the dissolution.
When Lord Beaconsfield resigned, the queen sent for Lord Hartington, the
titular leader of the Liberals, but he and Lord Granville assured her
that no other chief than Gladstone would satisfy the party. Accordingly,
on the 23rd of April he became prime minister for the second time. His
second administration, of which the main achievement was the extension
of the suffrage to the agricultural labourers, was harassed by two
controversies, relating to Ireland and Egypt, which proved disastrous to
the Liberal party. Gladstone alienated considerable masses of English
opinion by his efforts to reform the tenure of Irish land, and provoked
the Irish people by his attempts to establish social order and to
repress crime. A bill to provide compensation for tenants who had been
evicted by Irish landlords passed the Commons, but was shipwrecked in
the Lords, and a ghastly record of outrage and murder stained the
following winter. A Coercion Bill and a Land Bill passed in 1881 proved
unsuccessful. On the 6th of May 1882 the newly appointed chief secretary
for Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, and his under-secretary, Mr
Burke, were stabbed to death in the Phoenix Park at Dublin. A new Crimes
Act, courageously administered by Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan,
abolished exceptional crime in Ireland, but completed the breach between
the British government and the Irish party in parliament.
The bombardment of the forts at Alexandria and the occupation of Egypt
in 1882 were viewed with great disfavour by the bulk of the Liberal
party, and were but little congenial to Gladstone himself. The
circumstances of General Gordon's untimely death awoke an outburst of
indignation against those who were, or seemed to be, responsible for it.
Frequent votes of censure were proposed by the Opposition, and on the
8th of June 1885 the government were beaten on the budget. Gladstone
resigned. The queen offered him the dignity of an earldom, which he
declined. He was succeeded by Lord Salisbury.
First Home Rule Bill.
The general election took place in the following November. When it was
over the Liberal party was just short of the numerical strength which
was requisite to defeat the combination of Tories and Parnellites. A
startling surprise was at hand. Gladstone had for some time been
convinced of the expediency of conceding Home Rule to Ireland in the
event of the Irish constituencies giving unequivocal proof that they
desired it. His intentions were made known only to a privileged few, and
these, curiously, were not his colleagues. The general election of 1885
showed that Ireland, outside Ulster, was practically unanimous for Home
Rule. On the 17th of December an anonymous paragraph was published,
stating that if Mr Gladstone returned to office he was prepared to "deal
in a liberal spirit with the demand for Home Rule." It was clear that if
Gladstone meant what he appeared to mean, the Parnellites would support
him, and the Tories must leave office. The government seemed to accept
the situation. When parliament met they executed, for form's sake, some
confused manoeuvres, and then they were beaten on an amendment to the
address in favour of Municipal Allotments. On the 1st of February 1886
Gladstone became, for the third time, prime minister. Several of his
former colleagues declined to join him, on the ground of their absolute
hostility to the policy of Home Rule; others joined on the express
understanding that they were only pledged to consider the policy, and
did not fetter their further liberty of action. On the 8th of April
Gladstone brought in his bill for establishing Home Rule, and eight days
later the bill for buying out the Irish landlords. Meanwhile two members
of his cabinet, feeling themselves unable to support these measures,
resigned. Hostility to the bills grew apace. Gladstone was implored to
withdraw them, or substitute a resolution in favour of Irish autonomy;
but he resolved to press at least the Home Rule Bill to a second
reading. In the early morning of the 8th of June the bill was thrown out
by thirty. Gladstone immediately advised the queen to dissolve
parliament. Her Majesty strongly demurred to a second general election
within seven months; but Gladstone persisted, and she yielded.
Parliament was dissolved on the 26th of June. In spite of Gladstone's
skilful appeal to the constituencies to sanction the principle of Home
Rule, as distinct from the practical provisions of his late bill, the
general election resulted in a majority of considerably over 100 against
his policy, and Lord Salisbury resumed office. Throughout the existence
of the new parliament Gladstone never relaxed his extraordinary efforts,
though now nearer eighty than seventy, on behalf of the cause of
self-government for Ireland. The fertility of argumentative resource,
the copiousness of rhetoric, and the physical energy which he threw into
the enterprise, would have been remarkable at any stage of his public
life; continued into his eighty-fifth year they were little less than
miraculous. Two incidents of domestic interest, one happy and the other
sad, belong to that period of political storm and stress. On the 25th of
July 1889 Gladstone celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his marriage,
and on the 4th of July 1891 his eldest son, William Henry, a man of fine
character and accomplishments, died, after a lingering illness, in his
fifty-second year.
Second Home Rule Bill.
The crowning struggle of Gladstone's political career was now
approaching its climax. Parliament was dissolved on the 28th of June
1892. The general election resulted in a majority of forty for Home
Rule, heterogeneously composed of Liberals, Labour members and Irish. As
soon as the new parliament met a vote of want of confidence in Lord
Salisbury's government was moved and carried. Lord Salisbury resigned,
and on the 15th of August 1892 Gladstone kissed hands as first lord of
the treasury. He was the first English statesman that had been four
times prime minister. Parliament reassembled in January 1893. Gladstone
brought in his new Home Rule Bill on the 13th of February. It passed the
House of Commons, but was thrown out by the House of Lords on the second
reading on the 8th of September 1893. Gladstone's political work was
now, in his own judgment, ended. He made his last speech in the House of
Commons on the 1st of March 1894, acquiescing in some amendments
introduced by the Lords into the Parish Councils Bill; and on the 3rd of
March he placed his resignation in the queen's hands. He never set foot
again in the House of Commons, though he remained a member of it till
the dissolution of 1895. He paid occasional visits to friends in
London, Scotland and the south of France; but the remainder of his life
was spent for the most part at Hawarden. He occupied his leisure by
writing a rhymed translation of the Odes of Horace, and preparing an
elaborately annotated edition of Butler's _Analogy_ and _Sermons_. He
had also contemplated some addition to the Homeric studies which he had
always loved, but this design was never carried into effect, for he was
summoned once again from his quiet life of study and devotion to the
field of public controversy. The Armenian massacres in 1894 and 1895
revived all his ancient hostility to "the governing Turk." He denounced
the massacres and their perpetrators at public meetings held at Chester
on the 6th of August 1895, and at Liverpool on the 24th of September
1896. In March 1897 he recapitulated the hideous history in an open
letter to the duke of Westminster.
Death.
But the end, though not yet apprehended, was at hand. Since his
retirement from office Gladstone's physical vigour, up to that time
unequalled, had shown signs of impairment. Towards the end of the summer
of 1897 he began to suffer from an acute pain, which was attributed to
facial neuralgia, and in November he went to Cannes. In February 1898 he
returned to England and went to Bournemouth. There he was informed that
the pain had its origin in a disease which must soon prove fatal. He
received the information with simple thankfulness, and only asked that
he might die at home. On the 22nd of March he returned to Hawarden, and
there he died on the 19th of May 1898. During the night of the 25th of
May his body was conveyed from Hawarden to London and the coffin was
placed on a bier in Westminster Hall. Throughout the 26th and 27th a
vast train of people, officially estimated at 250,000, and drawn from
every rank and class, moved in unbroken procession past the bier. On the
28th of May the coffin, preceded by the two Houses of Parliament and
escorted by the chief magnates of the realm, was carried from
Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey. The heir-apparent and his son,
the prime minister and the leader of the House of Commons, were among
those who bore the pall. The body was buried in the north transept of
the abbey, where, on the 19th of June 1900, Mrs Gladstone's body was
laid beside it.
Family.
Mr and Mrs Gladstone had four sons and four daughters, of whom one died
in infancy. The eldest son, W. H. Gladstone (1840-1891), was a member of
parliament for many years, and married the daughter of Lord Blantyre,
his son William (b. 1885) inheriting the family estates. The fourth son,
Herbert John (b. 1854), sat in parliament for Leeds from 1880 to 1910,
and filled various offices, being home secretary 1905-1910; in 1910 he
was created Viscount Gladstone, on being appointed governor-general of
united South Africa. The eldest daughter, Agnes, married the Rev. E. C.
Wickham, headmaster of Wellington, 1873-1893, and later Dean of Lincoln.
Another daughter married the Rev. Harry Drew, rector of Hawarden. The
youngest, Helen, was for some years vice-principal of Newnham College,
Cambridge.
Character.
After a careful survey of Mr Gladstone's life, enlightened by personal
observation, it is inevitable to attempt some analysis of his character.
First among his moral attributes must be placed his religiousness. From
those early days when a fond mother wrote of him as having been "truly
converted to God," down to the verge of ninety years, he lived in the
habitual contemplation of the unseen world, and regulated his private
and public action by reference to a code higher than that of mere
prudence or worldly wisdom. A second characteristic, scarcely less
prominent than the first, was his love of power. His ambition had
nothing in common with the vulgar eagerness for place and pay and social
standing. Rather it was a resolute determination to possess that control
over the machine of state which should enable him to fulfil without let
or hindrance the political mission with which he believed that
Providence had charged him. The love of power was supported by a
splendid fearlessness. No dangers were too threatening for him to face,
no obstacles too formidable, no tasks too laborious, no heights too
steep. The love of power and the supporting courage were allied with a
marked imperiousness. Of this quality there was no trace in his manner,
which was courteous, conciliatory and even deferential; nor in his
speech, which breathed an almost exaggerated humility. But the
imperiousness showed itself in the more effectual form of action; in his
sudden resolves, his invincible insistence, his recklessness of
consequences to himself and his friends, his habitual assumption that
the civilized world and all its units must agree with him, his indignant
astonishment at the bare thought of dissent or resistance, his
incapacity to believe that an overruling Providence would permit him to
be frustrated or defeated. He had by nature what he himself called a
"vulnerable temper and impetuous moods." But so absolute was his
lifelong self-mastery that he was hardly ever betrayed into saying that
which, on cooler reflection, needed to be recalled. It was easy enough
to see the "vulnerable temper" as it worked within, but it was never
suffered to find audible expression. It may seem paradoxical, but it is
true, to say that Mr Gladstone was by nature conservative. His natural
bias was to respect things as they were. In his eyes, institutions,
customs, systems, so long as they had not become actively mischievous,
were good because they were old. It is true that he was sometimes forced
by conviction or fate or political necessity to be a revolutionist on a
large scale; to destroy an established Church; to add two millions of
voters to the electorate; to attack the parliamentary union of the
kingdoms. But these changes were, in their inception, distasteful to
their author. His whole life was spent in unlearning the prejudices in
which he was educated. His love of freedom steadily developed, and he
applied its principles more and more courageously to the problems of
government. But it makes some difference to the future of a democratic
state whether its leading men are eagerly on the look-out for something
to revolutionize, or approach a constitutional change by the gradual
processes of conviction and conversion.
Great as were his eloquence, his knowledge and his financial skill,
Gladstone was accustomed to say of himself that the only quality in
which, so far as he knew, he was distinguished from his fellow-men was
his faculty of concentration. Whatever were the matter in hand, he so
concentrated himself on it, and absorbed himself in it, that nothing
else seemed to exist for him.
A word must be said about physical characteristics. In his prime
Gladstone was just six feet high, but his inches diminished as his years
increased, and in old age the unusual size of his head and breadth of
his shoulders gave him a slightly top-heavy appearance. His features
were strongly marked; the nose trenchant and hawk-like, and the mouth
severely lined. His flashing eyes were deep-set, and in colour resembled
the onyx with its double band of brown and grey. His complexion was of
an extreme pallor, and, combined with his jet-black hair, gave in
earlier life something of an Italian aspect to his face. His dark
eyebrows were singularly flexible, and they perpetually expanded and
contracted in harmony with what he was saying. He held himself
remarkably upright, and even from his school-days at Eton had been
remarked for the rapid pace at which he habitually walked. His voice was
a baritone, singularly clear and far-reaching. In the Waverley Market at
Edinburgh, which is said to hold 20,000 people, he could be heard
without difficulty; and as late as 1895 he said to the present writer:
"What difference does it make to me whether I speak to 400 or 4000
people?" His physical vigour in old age earned him the popular nickname
of the Grand Old Man.
Lord Morley of Blackburn's _Life of Gladstone_ was published in 1903.
(G. W. E. R.)
GLADSTONE, a seaport of Clinton county, Queensland, Australia, 328 m. by
rail N.E. of Brisbane. Pop. (1901) 1566. It possesses a fine,
well-sheltered harbour reputed one of the best in Queensland, at the
mouth of the river Boyne. Gold, manganese, copper and coal are found in
the neighbourhood. Gladstone, founded in 1847, became a municipality in
1863.
See J. F. Hogan, _The Gladstone Colony_ (London, 1898).
GLAGOLITIC, an early Slavonic alphabet: also the liturgy written
therein, and the people (Dalmatians and Roman Catholic Montenegrins)
among whom it has survived by special licence of the Pope (see SLAVS for
table of letters).
GLAIR (from Fr. _glaire_, probably from Lat. _clarus_, clear, bright),
the white of an egg, and hence a term used for a preparation made of
this and used, in bookbinding and in gilding, to retain the gold and as
a varnish. The adjective "glairy" is used of substances having the
viscous and transparent consistency of the white of an egg.
GLAISHER, JAMES (1809-1903); English meteorologist and aeronaut, was
born in London on the 7th of April 1809. After serving for a few years
on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, he acted as an assistant at the
Cambridge and Greenwich observatories successively, and when the
department of meteorology and magnetism was formed at the latter, he was
entrusted with its superintendence, which he continued to exercise for
thirty-four years, until his retirement from the public service. In 1845
he published his well-known dew-point tables, which have gone through
many editions. In 1850 he established the Meteorological Society, acting
as its secretary for many years, and in 1866 he assisted in the
foundation of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. He was
appointed a member of the royal commission on the warming and
ventilation of dwellings in 1875, and for twelve years from 1880 acted
as chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Exploration
Fund. But his name is best known in connexion with the series of balloon
ascents which he made between 1862 and 1866, mostly in company with
Henry Tracey Coxwell. Many of these ascents were arranged by a committee
of the British Association, of which he was a member, and were strictly
scientific in character, the object being to carry out observations on
the temperature, humidity, &c., of the atmosphere at high elevations. In
one of them, that which took place at Wolverhampton on the 5th of
September 1862, Glaisher and his companion attained the greatest height
that had been reached by a balloon carrying passengers. As no
automatically recording instruments were available, and Glaisher was
unable to read the barometer at the highest point owing to loss of
consciousness, the precise altitude can never be known, but it is
estimated at about 7 m. from the earth. He died on the 7th of February
1903 at Croydon.
GLAMIS, a village and parish of Forfarshire, Scotland, 5-3/4 m. W. by S.
of Forfar by the Caledonian railway. Pop. of parish (1901) 1351. The
name is sometimes spelled Glammis and the _i_ is mute: it is derived
from the Gaelic, _glamhus_, "a wide gap," "a vale." The chief object in
the village is the sculptured stone, traditionally supposed to be a
memorial of Malcolm II., although Fordun's statement that the king was
slain in the castle is now rejected. About a mile from the station
stands Glamis Castle, the seat of the earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne,
a fine example of the Scottish Baronial style, enriched with certain
features of the French chateau. In its present form it dates mostly from
the 17th century, but the original structure was as old as the 11th
century, for Macbeth was Thane of Glamis. Several of the early Scots
kings, especially Alexander III., used it occasionally as a residence.
Robert II. bestowed the thanedom on John Lyon, who had married the
king's second daughter by Elizabeth Mure and was thus the founder of the
existing family. Patrick Lyon became hostage to England for James I. in
1424. When, in 1537, Janet Douglas, widow of the 6th Lord Glamis, was
burned at Edinburgh as a witch, for conspiring to procure James V.'s
death, Glamis was forfeited to the crown, but it was restored to her son
six years later when her innocence had been established. The 3rd earl of
Strathmore entertained the Old Chevalier and eighty of his immediate
followers in 1715. After discharging the duties of hospitality the earl
joined the Jacobites at Sheriffmuir and fell on the battlefield. Sir
Walter Scott spent a night in the "hoary old pile" when he was about
twenty years old, and gives a striking relation of his experiences in
his _Demonology and Witchcraft_. The hall has an arched ceiling and
several historical portraits, including those of Claverhouse, Charles
II. and James II. of England. At Cossans, in the parish of Glamis, there
is a remarkable sculptured monolith, and other examples occur at the
Hunters' Hill and in the old kirkyard of Eassie.
GLAMORGANSHIRE (Welsh _Morganwg_), a maritime county occupying the
south-east corner of Wales, and bounded N.W. by Carmarthenshire, N. by
Carmarthenshire and Breconshire, E. by Monmouthshire and S. and S.W. by
the Bristol Channel and Carmarthen Bay. The contour of the county is
largely determined by the fact that it lies between the mountains of
Breconshire and the Bristol Channel. Its extreme breadth from the sea
inland is 29 m., while its greatest length from east to west is 53 m.
Its chief rivers, the Rhymney, Taff, Neath (or Nedd) and Tawe or Tawy,
have their sources in the Breconshire mountains, the two first trending
towards the south-east, while the two last trend to the south-west, so
that the main body of the county forms a sort of quarter-circle between
the Taff and the Neath. Near the apex of the angle formed by these two
rivers is the loftiest peak in the county, the great Pennant scarp of
Craig y Llyn or Carn Moesyn, 1970 ft. high, which in the Glacial period
diverted the ice-flow from the Beacons into the valley on either side of
it. To the south and south-east of this peak extend the great
coal-fields of mid-Glamorgan, their surface forming an irregular plateau
with an average elevation of 600 to 1200 ft. above sea-level, but with
numerous peaks about 1500 ft. high, or more; Mynydd y Caerau, the second
highest being 1823 ft. Out of this plateau have been carved, to the
depth of 500 to 800 ft. below its general level, three distinct series
of narrow valleys, those in each series being more or less parallel. The
rivers which give their names to these valleys include the Cynon, the
Great and Lesser Rhondda (tributaries of the Taff) and the Ely flowing
to the S.E., the Ogwr or Ogmore (with its tributaries the Garw and
Llynfi) flowing south through Bridgend, and the Avan bringing the waters
of the Corwg and Gwynfi to the south-west into Swansea Bay at Aberavon.
To the south of this central hill country, which is wet, cold and
sterile, and whose steep slopes form the southern edge of the
coal-field, there stretches out to the sea a gently undulating plain,
compendiously known as the "Vale of Glamorgan," but in fact consisting
of a succession of small vales of such fertile land and with such a mild
climate that it has been styled, not inaptly, the "Garden of Wales." To
the east of the central area referred to and divided from it by a spur
of the Brecknock mountains culminating in Carn Bugail, 1570 ft. high, is
the Rhymney, which forms the county's eastern boundary. On the west
other spurs of the Beacons divide the Neath from the Tawe (which enters
the sea at Swansea), and the Tawe from the Loughor, which, with its
tributary the Amman, separates the county on the N.W. from
Carmarthenshire, in which it rises, and falling into Carmarthen Bay
forms what is known as the Burry estuary, so called from a small stream
of that name in the Gower peninsula. The rivers are all comparatively
short, the Taff, in every respect the chief river, being only 33 m.
long.
Down to the middle of the 19th century most of the Glamorgan valleys
were famous for their beautiful scenery, but industrial operations have
since destroyed most of this beauty, except in the so-called "Vale of
Glamorgan," the Vale of Neath, the "combes" and limestone gorges of
Gower and the upper reaches of the Taff and the Tawe. The Vale of Neath
is _par excellence_ the waterfall district of South Wales, the finest
falls being the Cilhepste fall, the Sychnant and the three Clungwyns on
the Mellte and its tributaries near the Vale of Neath railway from Neath
to Hirwaun, Scwd Einon Gam and Scwd Gladys on the Pyrddin on the west
side of the valley close by, with Melin Court and Abergarwed still
nearer Neath. There are also several cascades on the Dulais, and in the
same district, though in Breconshire, is Scwd Henrhyd on the Llech near
Colbren Junction. Almost the only part of the county which is now well
timbered is the Vale of Neath. There are three small lakes, Llyn Fawr
and Llyn Fach near Craig y Llyn and Kenfig Pool amid the sand-dunes of
Margam. The rainfall of the county varies from an average of about 25
in. at Porthcawl and other parts of the Vale of Glamorgan to about 37
in. at Cardiff, 40 in. at Swansea and to upwards of 70 in. in the
northern part of the county, the fall being still higher in the
adjoining parts of Breconshire whence Cardiff, Swansea, Merthyr and a
large area near Neath draw their main supplies of water.
The county has a coast-line of about 83 m. Its two chief bays are the
Burry estuary and Swansea, one on either side of the Gower Peninsula,
which has also a number of smaller inlets with magnificent cliff
scenery. The rest of the coast is fairly regular, the chief openings
being at the mouths of the Ogmore and the Taff respectively. The most
conspicuous headlands are Whiteford Point, Worms Head and Mumbles Head
in Gower, Nash Point and Lavernock Point on the eastern half of the
coast.
_Geology._--The Silurian rocks, the oldest in the county, form a small
inlier about 2 sq. m. in area at Rumney and Pen-y-lan, north of
Cardiff, and consist of mudstones and sandstones of Wenlock and Ludlow
age; a feeble representative of the Wenlock Limestone also is present.
They are conformably succeeded by the Old Red Sandstone which extends
westwards as far as Cowbridge as a deeply eroded anticline largely
concealed by Trias and Lias. The Old Red Sandstone consists in the
lower parts of red marls and sandstones, while the upper beds are
quartzitic and pebbly, and form bold scarps which dominate the low
ground formed by the softer beds below. Cefn-y-bryn, another anticline
of Old Red Sandstone (including small exposures of Silurian rocks),
forms the prominent backbone of the Gower peninsula. The next
formation is the Carboniferous Limestone which encircles and underlies
the great South Wales coal-field, on the south of which, west of
Cardiff, it forms a bold escarpment of steeply-dipping beds
surrounding the Old Red Sandstone anticline. It shows up through the
Trias and Lias in extensive inliers near Bridgend, while in Gower it
dips away from the Old Red Sandstone of Cefn-y-bryn. On the north of
the coal-field it is just reached near Merthyr Tydfil. The Millstone
Grit, which consists of grits, sandstones and shales, crops out above
the limestone and serves to introduce the Coal Measures, which lie in
the form of a great trough extending east and west across the county
and occupying most of its surface. The coal seams are most numerous in
the lower part of the series; the Pennant Sandstone succeeds and
occupies the inner parts of the basin, forming an elevated moorland
region deeply trenched by the teeming valleys (e.g. the Rhondda) which
cross the coal-field from north to south. Above the Pennant Sandstone
still higher coals come in. Taken generally, the coals are bituminous
in the south-east and anthracitic in the north-west.
After the Coal Measures had been deposited, the southern part of the
region was subjected to powerful folding; the resulting anticlines
were worn down during a long period of detrition, and then submerged
slowly beneath a Triassic lake in which accumulated the Keuper
conglomerates and marls which spread over the district west of Cardiff
and are traceable on the coast of Gower. The succeeding Rhaetic and
Lias which form most of the coastal plain (the fertile Vale of
Glamorgan) from Penarth to near Bridgend were laid down by the
Jurassic sea. A well-marked raised beach is traceable in Gower.
Sand-dunes are present locally around Swansea Bay. Moraines, chiefly
formed of gravel and clay, occupy many of the Glamorgan valleys; and
these, together with the striated surfaces which may be observed at
higher levels, are clearly glacial in origin. In the Coal Measures and
the newer Limestones and Triassic, Rhaetic and Liassic conglomerates,
marls and shales, many interesting fossils have been disinterred:
these include the remains of an air-breathing reptile
(_Anthracespeton_). Bones of the cave-bear, lion, mammoth, reindeer,
rhinoceros, along with flint weapons and tools, have been discovered
in some caves of the Gower peninsula.
_Agriculture._--The low-lying land on the south from Caerphilly to
Margam is very fertile, the soil being a deep rich loam; and here the
standard of agriculture is fairly high, and there prevails a
well-defined tenant-right custom, supposed to be of ancient origin but
probably dating only from the beginning of the 19th century.
Everywhere on the Coal Measures the soil is poor, while vegetation is
also injured by the smoke from the works, especially copper smoke.
Leland (c. 1535) describes the lowlands as growing good corn and grass
but little wood, while the mountains had "redde dere, kiddes plenty,
oxen and sheep." The land even in the "Vale" seems to have been open
and unenclosed till the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th
century, while enclosure spread to the uplands still later. About
one-fifth of the total area is still common land, more than half of
which is unsuitable for cultivation. The total area under cultivation
in 1905 was 269,271 acres or about one-half of the total area of the
county. The chief crops raised (giving them in the order of their
respective acreages) are oats, barley, turnips and swedes, wheat,
potatoes and mangolds. A steady decrease of the acreage under
grain-crops, green-crops and clover has been accompanied by an
increase in the area of pasture. Dairying has been largely abandoned
for stock-raising, and very little "Caerphilly cheese" is now made in
that district. In 1905 Glamorgan had the largest number of horses in
agriculture of any Welsh county except those of Carmarthen and
Cardigan. Good sheep and ponies are reared in the hill-country.
Pig-keeping is much neglected, and despite the mild climate very
little fruit is grown. The average size of holdings in 1905 was 47.3
acres, there being only 46 holdings above 300 acres, and 1719 between
50 and 500 acres.
_Mining and Manufactures._--Down to the middle of the 18th century the
county had no industry of any importance except agriculture. The coal
which underlies practically the whole surface of the county except the
Vale of Glamorgan and West Gower was little worked till about 1755,
when it began to be used instead of charcoal for the smelting of iron.
By 1811, when there were 25 blast furnaces in the county, the demand
for coal for this purpose had much increased, but it was in the most
active period of railway construction that it reached its maximum.
Down to about 1850, if not later, the chief collieries were owned by
the ironmasters and were worked for their own requirements, but when
the suitability of the lower seams in the district north of Cardiff
for steam purposes was realized, an export trade sprang up and soon
assumed enormous proportions, so that "the port of Cardiff" (including
Barry and Penarth), from which the bulk of the steam coal was shipped,
became the first port in the world for the shipment of coal. The
development of the anthracite coal-field lying to the north and west
of Swansea (from which port it is mostly shipped) dates mainly from
the closing years of the 19th century, when the demand for this coal
grew rapidly. There are still large areas in the Rhymney Valley on the
east, and in the districts of Neath and Swansea on the west, whose
development has only recently been undertaken. In connexion with the
coal industry, patent fuel (made from small coal and tar) is largely
manufactured at Cardiff, Port Talbot and Swansea, the shipments from
Swansea being the largest in the kingdom. Next in importance to coal
are the iron, steel and tin-plate industries, and in the Swansea
district the smelting of copper and a variety of other ores.
The manufacture of iron and steel is carried on at Dowlais, Merthyr
Tydfil, Cardiff, Port Talbot, Briton Ferry, Pontardawe, Swansea,
Gorseinon and Gowerton. During the last quarter of the 19th century
the use of the native ironstone was almost wholly given up, and the
necessary ore is now imported, mainly from Spain. As a result several
of the older inland works, such as those of Aberdare, Ystalyfera and
Brynaman have been abandoned, and new works have been established on
or near the sea-board; e.g. the Dowlais company in 1891 opened large
works at Cardiff. The tin-plate industry is mainly confined to the
west of the county, Swansea being the chief port for the shipment of
tin-plates, though there are works near Llantrisant and at Melin
Griffith near Cardiff, the latter being the oldest in the county.
Copper-smelting is carried on on a large scale in the west of the
county, at Port Talbot, Cwmavon, Neath and Swansea, and on a small
scale at Cardiff, the earliest works having been established at Neath
in 1584 and at Swansea in 1717. There are nickel works at Clydach near
Swansea, the nickel being imported in the form of "matte" from Canada.
Swansea has almost a monopoly of the manufacture of spelter or zinc.
Lead, silver and a number of other metals or their by-products are
treated in or near Swansea, which is often styled the "metallurgical
capital of Wales." Limestone and silica quarries are worked, while
sandstone and clay are also raised. Swansea and Nantgarw were formerly
famous for their china, coarse ware is still made chiefly at Ewenny
and terra-cotta at Pencoed. Large numbers of people are employed in
engineering works and in the manufacture of machines, chains,
conveyances, tools, paper and chemicals. The textile factories are few
and unimportant.
_Fisheries._--Fisheries exist all along the coast; by lines,
draught-nets, dredging, trawling, fixed nets and by hand. There is a
fleet of trawlers at Swansea. The principal fish caught are cod,
herring, pollock, whiting, flukes, brill, plaice, soles, turbot,
oysters, mussels, limpets, cockles, shrimps, crabs and lobsters. There
are good fish-markets at Swansea and Cardiff.
_Communications._--The county has ample dock accommodation. The
various docks of Cardiff amount to 210 acres, including timber ponds;
Penarth has a dock and basin of 26 acres and a tidal harbour of 55
acres. Barry docks cover 114 acres; Swansea has 147 acres, including
its new King's Dock; and Port Talbot 90 acres. There are also docks at
Briton Ferry and Porthcawl, but they are not capable of admitting
deep-draft vessels.
Besides its ports, Glamorgan has abundant means of transit in many
railways, of which the Great Western is the chief. Its trunk line
traversing the country between the mountains and the sea passes
through Cardiff, Bridgend and Landore (on the outskirts of Swansea),
and throws off numerous branches to the north. The Taff Vale railway
serves all the valley of the Taff and its tributaries, and has also
extensions to Barry and (through Llantrisant and Cowbridge) to
Aberthaw. The Rhymney railway likewise serves the Rhymney Valley, and
has a joint service with the Great Western between Cardiff and Merthyr
Tydfil--the latter town being also the terminus of the Brecon and
Merthyr and a branch of the North-Western from Abergavenny. The Barry
railway visits Cardiff and then travels in a north-westerly direction
to Pontypridd and Porth, while it sends another branch along the coast
through Llantwit Major to Bridgend. Swansea is connected with Merthyr
by the Great Western, with Brecon by the Midland, with Craven Arms and
Mid-Wales generally by the London & North-Western, with the Rhondda
Valley by the Rhondda and Swansea Bay (now worked by the Great
Western) and with Mumbles by the Mumbles railway. The Port Talbot
railway runs to Blaengarw, and the Neath and Brecon railway (starting
from Neath) joins the Midland at Colbren Junction. The canals of the
county are the Glamorgan canal from Cardiff to Merthyr Tydfil (25-1/2
m.), with a branch (7 m.) to Aberdare, the Neath canal (13 m.) from
Briton Ferry to Abernant, Glyn Neath (whence a tramway formerly
connected it with Aberdare), the Tennant canal connecting the rivers
Neath and Tawe, and the Swansea canal (16-1/2 m.), running up the
Swansea Valley from Swansea to Abercrave in Breconshire. Comparatively
little use is now made of these canals, excepting the lower portions
of the Glamorgan canal.
_Population and Administration._--The area of the ancient county with
which the administrative county is conterminous is 518,863 acres, with
a population in 1901 of 859,931 persons. In the three decades between
1831 and 1861 it increased 35.2, 35.4 and 37.1% respectively, and in
1881-1891, 34.4, its average increase in the other decennial periods
subsequent to 1861 being about 25%. The county is divided into five
parliamentary divisions (viz. Glamorganshire East, South and Middle,
Gower and Rhondda); it also includes the Cardiff district of boroughs
(consisting of Cardiff, Cowbridge and Llantrisant), which has one
member; the greater part of the parliamentary borough of Merthyr
Tydfil (which mainly consists of the county borough of Merthyr, the
urban district of Aberdare and part of Mountain Ash), and returns two
members; and the two divisions of Swansea District returning one
member each, one division consisting of the major part of Swansea
town, the other comprising the remainder of Swansea and the boroughs
of Aberavon, Kenfig, Llwchwr and Neath. There are six municipal
boroughs: Aberavon (pop. in 1901, 7553), Cardiff (164,333), Cowbridge
(1202), Merthyr Tydfil (69,228), Neath (13,720) and Swansea (94,537).
Cardiff (which in 1905 was created a city), Merthyr Tydfil and Swansea
are county boroughs. The following are urban districts: Aberdare
(43,365), Barry (27,030), Bridgend (6062), Briton Ferry (6973),
Caerphilly (15,835), Glyncorrwg (6452), Maesteg (15,012), Margam
(9014), Mountain Ash (31,093); Ogmore and Garw (19,907), Oystermouth
(4461), Penarth (14,228), Pontypridd (32,316); Porthcawl (1872) and
Rhondda, previously known as Ystradyfodwg (113,735). Glamorgan is in
the S. Wales circuit, and both assizes and quarter-sessions are held
at Cardiff and Swansea alternately. All the municipal boroughs have
separate commissions of the peace, and Cardiff and Swansea have also
separate courts of quarter-sessions. The county has thirteen other
petty sessional divisions, Cardiff, the Rhondda (with Pontypridd) and
the Merthyr and Aberdare district have stipendiary magistrates. There
are 165 civil parishes. Excepting the districts of Gower and Kilvey,
which are in the diocese of St David's, the whole county is in the
diocese of Llandaff. There are 159 ecclesiastical parishes or
districts situated wholly or partly within the county.
_History._--The earliest known traces of man within the area of the
present county are the human remains found in the famous bone-caves of
Gower, though they are scanty as compared with the huge deposits of
still earlier animal remains. To a later stage, perhaps in the Neolithic
period, belongs a number of complete skeletons discovered in 1903 in
sand-blown tumuli at the mouth of the Ogmore, where many flint
implements were also found. Considerably later, and probably belonging
to the Bronze Age (though finds of bronze implements have been scanty),
are the many cairns and tumuli, mainly on the hills, such as on Garth
Mountain near Cardiff, Crug-yr-avan and a number east of the Tawe; the
stone circles often found in association with the tumuli, that of Carn
Llecharth near Pontardawe being one of the most complete in Wales; and
the fine cromlechs of Cefn Bryn in Gower (known as Arthur's Stone), of
St Nicholas and of St Lythan's near Cardiff.
In Roman times the country from the Neath to the Wye was occupied by the
Silures, a pre-Celtic race, probably governed at that time by Brythonic
Celts. West of the Neath and along the fringe of the Brecknock Mountains
were probably remnants of the earlier Goidelic Celts, who have left
traces in the place-names of the Swansea valley (e.g. _llwch_, "a lake")
and in the illegible Ogham inscription at Loughor, the only other Ogham
stone in the county being at Kenfig, a few miles to the east of the
Neath estuary. The conquest of the Silures by the Romans was begun about
A.D. 50 by Ostorius Scapula and completed some 25 years later by Julius
Frontinus, who probably constructed the great military road, called Via
Julia Maritima, from Gloucester to St David's, with stations at Cardiff,
Bovium (variously identified with Boverton, Cowbridge and Ewenny), Nidum
(identified with Neath) and Leucarum or Loughor. The important station
of Gaer on the Usk near Brecon was connected by two branch roads, one
running from Cardiff through Gelligaer (where there was a strong hill
fort) and Merthyr Tydfil, and another from Neath through Capel Colbren.
Welsh tradition credits Glamorgan with being the first home of
Christianity, and Llandaff the earliest bishopric in Britain, the name
of three reputed missionaries of the 2nd century being preserved in the
names of parishes in south Glamorgan. What is certain, however, is that
the first two bishops of Llandaff, St Dubricius and St Teilo, lived
during the first half of the 6th century, to which period also belongs
the establishment of the great monastic settlements of Llancarvan by
Cadoc, of Llandough by Oudoceus and of Llantwit Major by Illtutus, the
last of which flourished as a seat of learning down to the 12th century.
A few moated mounds such as at Cardiff indicate that, after the
withdrawal of the Romans, the coasts were visited by sporadic bands of
Saxons, but the Scandinavians who came in the 9th and succeeding
centuries left more abundant traces both in the place-names of the coast
and in such camps as that on Sully Island, the Bulwarks at Porthkerry
and Hardings Down in Gower. Meanwhile the native tribes of the district
had regained their independence under a line of Welsh chieftains, whose
domain was consolidated into a principality known as Glywyssing, till
about the end of the 10th century when it acquired the name of Morganwg,
that is the territory of Morgan, a prince who died in A.D. 980; it then
comprised the whole country from the Neath to the Wye, practically
corresponding to the present diocese of Llandaff. Gwlad Morgan, later
softened into Glamorgan, never had much vogue and meant precisely the
same as Morganwg, though the two terms became differentiated a few
centuries later.