Palace by desire of the Queen. Lady Lyttelton received us, and
we took off the children’s things before going in to H.M. She
shook hands very kindly and desired me to sit down by her.
The three Royal children were with her. Princess Alice a nice
fat baby, thoroughly good humoured and benevolent. Princess
Royal about a head shorter than Willie, very engaging, not
exactly pretty but like the Queen and Prince Albert. The
Prince of Wales small, and the head not striking me as well
shaped, his long trousers tied below the ankles and very full,
most unbecoming. His manners very dear and not shy. They are
evidently quite unspoilt, and I observed the Queen made them
obey her. Princess Royal and Willie kissed each other, and she
patronised little Agnes who stood by her and the Prince, quite
at home and nearly as tall as the Prince, so much so as to make
the Queen observe, ‘The Prince _is_ the tallest of the two’ (he
was a year older). I was much relieved at my children being
so good and doing no harm. The Queen observed, ‘What care
Willie takes of Agnes,’ admired his hair and his width. Agnes’s
independence amused her, and she was in fits of laughter
occasionally at her. Before leaving the Queen kissed both my
children.”
“_January 30, 1846._--Dined at the Palace; the Queen ill
dressed; very kind to us, talking much of Mary’s children and
my own. The Queen has ordered me to bring my children to her on
Saturday.
“I accordingly took the four, Willie, Agnes, Stephen,[67] and
Jessy.[68] H.M. came in with her four, and was very nice and
kind. Princess Royal a nice quiet thing, not so much difference
in the heights as last time. Prince of Wales has a striking
countenance, Alfred very pretty, all have such fat white necks.
Prince Alfred is a year and a half old, Stephen head and
shoulders taller at a year and ten months. The Queen commented
on Agnes’s looks: ‘I had not heard about her being so very
pretty.’ Thought Willie pale and Stephen gigantic, baby fat
and like her father. She took great notice of them all, kissed
Agnes and gave them a huge lamb between them all, which the
Royal children and ours played with very happily during the
visit. The Queen spoke of their goodness, asked if they were
always so good.”
We must now return to 1842. In September, at Hawarden, Gladstone met
with the shooting accident that caused the loss of the forefinger of
his left hand. Except for that no harm was done, and Mrs. Gladstone
records her husband’s calmness and cheerfulness, “only thankful for
his escape and thinking how he could make the best of it for me. He
only seemed to think of others, evincing the greatest coolness and
presence of mind, quietly submitting to the operation, which lasted
five minutes. It gave him terrible pain, which he bore with unflinching
courage.” There were really two operations, but this was kept from his
wife, who was expecting her confinement in a month. The surgeon found
he had made the cut in the wrong place and had to do it all over again.
As the days of chloroform had not yet dawned, the acutest agony was
endured. All went well, and in a few days Gladstone was able to play
chess and whist without inconvenience.
On 18th October Mrs. Gladstone drove in the park with her husband, and
at 8 p.m. her little girl (Agnes) was born, “a fine healthy baby with
pretty features, complexion nice and clear, never red.”
Christmas was spent at Hawarden.
“_December 29._--My dear William’s birthday. God bless him!
How every day that passes more and more impresses me with the
treasure I am blessed with, but alas! how very far I am behind
him.
“_January 6, 1843._--Thirty-one to-day. Time passes so quickly,
and in reviewing the past year how little I have done. May God
enable me to act upon the resolutions I have formed.
“_January 7._--Most people struck by baby’s beauty, the eyes
particularly large and fine and very expressive, dark blue in
colour, the sweetest thing that ever was.
“_January 30._--We all left dear Hawarden, a party of
seventeen, including the Lytteltons and mama, besides children.
Willie a very fatiguing traveller, Agnes excellent. William[69]
met us at the station, all well. Whirled by the bustle of
London and the contrast of Hawarden.
“_March 3._--Engaged a cook after a long conversation about
religious matters, chiefly between her and William. She
interested me greatly.
“_March 6._--To Mr. Richmond with my boy, he finds him
difficult to paint and varying in expression.
“Dined with Samuel Rogers. Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop
of London and Mrs. Blomfield, Wordsworth, Lord Glenelg, and
others. Mr. Rogers whispered to me that he was much impressed
at having the heads of the Church to dine with him. I never saw
him so little at ease.
“_March 17._--We dined at the Palace. Clanwilliams, Lord
Palmerston, Lord Rosebery, Lord Jersey. Lord Sydney took me in.
After dinner the Queen asked me about William’s accident and
the children and Mary. She has a good deal of expression when
speaking, more than I had thought. Was surprised to find it so
little formal, really enjoyed my evening.”
Mrs. Gladstone was piling up experiences of many kinds. She was
learning the cares and pleasures of motherhood; she had become familiar
with the life of palaces and of political centres. She also gained
some acquaintance with a more sordid side of existence. One of her
housemaids had to be prosecuted for theft; Mrs. Gladstone had to spend
two mornings at Bow Street and to attend the trial. “Having with the
policeman, the searcher, and the pawnbroker sworn to speak the truth,
the whole truth, I went into the box. I felt very shy; they would
not admit William with me. To find myself there gave quite a new
view of life.” Mrs. Gladstone visited the girl at Newgate and at the
Penitentiary.
In 1843 Gladstone first became a Cabinet Minister.
“_May 13, 1843._--A letter from Sir Robert Peel offering
William a seat in the Cabinet, to succeed Lord Ripon as
President of the Board of Trade. He went to Peel, having taken
a short time for consideration, and came back to tell me there
was a hitch, because of the Church question. I walked with him
in Kensington Gardens. He was oppressed by the great anxiety
to act rightly, he asked me to pray for him. How thankful I am
to be joined to one whose mind is purity and integrity itself.
If I have received joy in reading Peel’s letter, how much more
ought I to feel in seeing the way he received it, in witnessing
that tenderness of conscience which shrinks at the bare idea
of any worldly gain lest it should in any way interfere with
higher duties.
“_May 15._--A consultation with Hope and Manning of some
length. They persuaded him to go himself to Peel. He has
accepted; God bless and prosper him in his new office. He
has been very happy in his former place. May the increase of
responsibility not injure his precious health. How I wish he
could have a horse!”
In August Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone and the children went to Fasque on
a visit to his father. From Glasgow to Fasque she travelled on the
outside of the mail coach, a twelve hours’ drive, her first experience
of such a mode of journeying, enjoying it immensely. When returning
in October, prevented by bad weather from going by sea as they had
intended from Dundee to London, they caught the midnight mail from
Perth. Only one inside place was available, so Mrs. Gladstone elected
to mount to the top with her husband, and so travelled all night, “cold
and blowing a high wind.”
Some of the entries in the Journal for 1844 show that Mrs. Gladstone’s
mind was turning towards the distress in London which, later on, she
was to do so much to relieve. At dinner in March with the Duke and
Duchess of Buccleuch, her host talked to her of the misery existing in
London, and she thought his conversation showed the interest and pains
he took. At this period she often went to the House of Commons, and one
night heard Shiel, “his style fluent and brilliant, but ranting, and
the voice peculiarly discordant and unpleasant”; and on another, Lord
Ashley on the Factory question.
On 4th April her son Stephen was born, “a plain baby, small eyes,” but
a few months later she notes, “baby greatly improved.” In June she
was present at a party at Buckingham Palace given for the Emperor of
Russia,[70] “a grand-looking personage, his figure so striking, tall,
and commanding, his manner remarkable, so very civil and courteous,
friendly without losing his dignity. The form and manner struck me
more than the face itself. But he has an expression that seems to
look straight through one, something peculiarly awful in the eyes.
The profile, however, is good, and combined with the figure there is
something grand and noble. It was interesting to watch him and the Duke
of Wellington talking together. When the Queen and the Emperor had
finished with refreshments, the manner in which she took his arm, and
his in giving it to her, was striking and graceful beyond description;
the great inequality of their heights would never have been suspected,
such was the grace and ease with which they walked off together.”
Mrs. Gladstone thoroughly enjoyed the continual meetings with
interesting persons; she liked listening to the conversation of such
men as Peel and Brougham, and was hugely delighted when after a
concert at the Palace the Duke of Wellington insisted on escorting her
husband and herself to their carriage. “I was fearful lest he should
catch cold, there was such a draught; he merely placed his cocked hat
upon his head. How characteristic is all he says, and the honesty and
peculiar straightforwardness of his character.”
On 27th July 1845 a second daughter was born, Catherine Jessy, “a nice
fat thing, with famous lungs to judge by her voice, the mouth so small
with short upper lip, the hair darkish, very placid, and takes much
notice for her age.”
There were some interesting dinners at Sir Robert Peel’s. One in March
1848 she thus describes:
“Anxiety and sorrow sat on many of the countenances assembled. There
stood Guizot, with that piercing eye of fire, his whole appearance
eagle-like, his countenance beaming with sagacity and a great
intellect, in earnest conversation with Peel, full of gesture, and
now and then his voice raised, as if bursting with feeling that would
out. There were the poor Jarnacs, with full marks of sorrow for their
King and Queen! The Princess Lieven; the Austrian Ambassador harassed
afresh with the increasing troubles in Austria which so afflicted his
wife as to make it impossible for her to be present. The party was
relieved by Lord Aberdeen, Lord and Lady Mahon. I had some talk with
Madame Jarnac. Her account of the poor Queen of France especially was
touching, of the dangers and trials connected with their flight, of the
sad deprivations to which they were subject, the terror of the poor
Queen about her husband and then her children. Sir Robert Peel joined
in our conversation; he views the state of Europe with much alarm.
He had received private information respecting the Prince of Prussia
(now at Bunsen’s), who is said to have broken his sword, and laid it
with his spurs at the feet of the King of Prussia. Lady Peel looks so
wonderfully young and pretty. I returned home excited with the evening
we had passed with that remarkable party.”
Next year (1849) dining again at Sir Robert Peel’s, Peel talked to her
after dinner. “I confess I had never known him so well before, for
now his conversation turned on subjects which specially brought out
feeling, his children and their education, Lady Lincoln, Mr. Goulburn’s
trials and excellences. Speaking of his children he enlarged upon
the satisfaction of having no permanent governess, liked his girls to
travel with him, said it enlarged their minds, and a good deal more,
showing that amidst all his great cares the domestic element was very
near his heart.”
Two more daughters were born, Mary, in 1847, and Helen in 1849. The
first sorrow of their married life occurred in 1850, when on 9th April
their little girl Catherine Jessy (born 1845) died of meningitis after
a long and painful illness. In her Journal Mrs. Gladstone writes:
“Yes, to look at her face after death was a privilege. I dread
lest the solemn remembrance of her loved face should in any way
fade, so holy it was.
“My loved child, my own Jessy, to think that the quiet
countenance in its deep repose is the same which but a few
hours before seemed racked with pain. The hair waved softly on
the marble forehead, the dark lashes fringing her cheeks, the
little white hands folded across one another. We had placed
roses and lilies of the valley about her. I could not describe
the sublimity of her expression.”
In 1850, after the death of their second daughter, Catherine, Gladstone
took his wife to Brighton to recruit, and although Mrs. Gladstone
looked worn and found it difficult to join in general conversation, she
felt as if a great calm had set in “after the storms before.”
Two more sons were born, Henry Neville in 1852, and Herbert John[71]
in 1854. Thus between 1840 and 1854 Mrs. Gladstone became the mother
of eight children, seven of whom survived. While never neglecting
her duties as a mother, from the first she studied her husband and
sought to secure him the quiet at home which he needed during the
Parliamentary Session. He used to say to her, “It is always relief and
always delight to see and to be with you.” Her sister Lady Lyttelton
gave him the same sense of restfulness; the two sisters were as united
after marriage as they had been before, and their close association was
only broken by Lady Lyttelton’s death in 1857. Gladstone wrote at the
time: “They so drew from their very earliest years and not less since
marriage than before it, their breath, so to speak, in common.” Lady
Lyttelton left twelve children, and Mrs. Gladstone, despite the cares
of her own family, and the rest of her various pre-occupations, never
ceased to look after these children as long as they needed her.
Mr. Gladstone was the soul of method, neatness, and punctuality; the
girl he had married was exactly the reverse, and she used to tease
her husband and tell him it was good for him to have an untidy,
unmethodical wife, it made him more human. Many stories are told of
her delinquencies. It is said that on one occasion when cards of
invitation were being sent out for a great party, certain letters of
the alphabet were mislaid and ultimately found after the party, hidden
in the interstices of a sofa into which they had fallen. The deep
offence of those persons who had received no invitation may be better
imagined than described. Most of us have known the queer experience of
the sudden disappearance of a pencil case or a pair of scissors, when
sitting on a chair or sofa of a certain type of upholstery.
When Mrs. Gladstone was beginning philanthropic work and had charge of
money connected with it, her husband told her that she must have a cash
box to keep it in, and must take great care of the key. One day she
triumphantly showed him the box with the key carefully fastened on to
it! But be it said that where such casual ways would have been harmful
to her husband’s interests, she was able to overcome them.
She managed all the details of their daily life; the meals were
punctually served, the carriage at the door to the moment. Mr.
Gladstone was never, through her instrumentality, kept waiting for
anything. She contrived with what almost amounted to genius to have
a hot dinner consisting of suitable food ready at any time between
eight and twelve o’clock that Mr. Gladstone might come home from the
House. It was always she who made the arrangements for journeys; she
looked after all the details of, and carefully guarded him from, the
tiresome inconveniences and annoyances inseparable from travel. She
used laughingly to tell him that while he, no doubt, could govern the
country admirably, arrangements for a railway journey were better left
to her. She accompanied him to the House of Commons whenever he had
an important speech to make, and from the Speaker’s little gallery
listened to every word and watched every gesture. She herself mixed
the egg-flip with which Mr. Gladstone provided himself when his voice
was to undergo a prolonged strain. In 1847, when she canvassed for
her husband at Oxford, she was described as a “potent canvasser.” At
Newcastle in 1862 she told a friend that it had been the happiest day
of her life, while her husband averred: “Catherine is a great part of
the whole business everywhere,” and twenty years later she said, “I
shall never forget that day! It was the first time that he was received
as he deserved to be.”
Sometimes she would herself receive his callers on business and usher
them into the library. Indeed, she shielded him from all the cares
and worries that it was possible for her to take on herself. She
looked after his health, and in her powers as physician Gladstone had
an intense confidence. He often consulted his wife when there were
difficulties between Ministers, and averred that her mother-wit often
hit on a solution. Even in comparatively small matters she sought
to save him physical fatigue. Every one who has held any kind of
public office knows the pain incurred in shaking hands with hundreds
of people. Mr. Gladstone used to stiffen his hand and to place his
thumb against the palm so that people could not grasp it, but even so
when his wife thought he had gone through enough fatigue of the kind,
standing close behind him she would thrust her hand forward in place
of his, and no one noticed the exchange.
She accompanied Gladstone on all his political campaigns, on all his
recreative travels. When in 1891 he went into residence at All Souls’,
Oxford, for a week, she invited herself to stay with Sir Henry Acland,
and her husband was in and out of the house as often as he wished.
Sir Stephen Glynne’s taste for the study of ecclesiastical
architecture[72] led him to rely on others for the management of his
estates, and in 1851 it was discovered that their financial condition
was in so bad a way, that it was feared Sir Stephen would have to leave
Hawarden. Mr. Gladstone had just inherited a large sum of money from
his father, and he devoted a portion of it to clearing off the debts
that through the indiscretions of an agent, left too much to his own
devices, encumbered the Hawarden estates. It was then arranged that
Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone and their young family should regard Hawarden
as their country home, Sir Stephen Glynne still continuing to live
there. He died suddenly in 1874; he was unmarried, and as his brother
Henry, who died in 1872, left no male issue, it had been settled by
will that the estates should pass to the eldest surviving son of his
eldest sister, but that Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone were to have the use
and enjoyment of Hawarden Castle and grounds for their lives. Thus
Mr. William Henry Gladstone became the heir to the property, which
descended on his death in 1891 to his eldest son, the late William
Glynne Charles Gladstone. But Hawarden continued to their death to be
the country home of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone and their children.
Mrs. Gladstone was devoted to the gardens and park of Hawarden, and was
sometimes seriously concerned for the trees that it was her husband’s
recreation to cut down, and would earnestly plead for them. But it
should be stated that Mr. Gladstone knew what he was doing, and his
knowledge of forestry only made for the improvement of the estate and
for the better health of the trees left standing.
II
Although the greater part of Mrs. Gladstone’s time was given to the
care of her husband and of her children, and to the social duties
entailed by her position, she found sufficient leisure during the
period we have traversed to initiate and carry through philanthropic
work of an important and useful kind, involving a large amount of
actual personal service.
She began by visiting the House of Charity in Soho, founded in 1846,
to provide shelter for a few of those persons, not of the ordinary
vagrant class, who through misfortune or ill-health had become homeless
wanderers, but could not bring themselves to ask for poor-law relief,
and indeed for many reasons would not have been received into the
casual wards of the workhouses. Mrs. Gladstone soon saw that something
further was needed. Throughout her life she was a most successful
beggar. She raised the sum of £1200 among her friends, rented some
disused slaughter-houses in Newport Market, made the necessary
alterations, and early in 1864 the place was opened as a Night Refuge.
In October a woman’s ward was added. All this was done mainly through
Mrs. Gladstone’s exertions. The interest of the public was thereby
aroused in the question of casual relief, and the passing of the
Houseless Poor Act[73] was the direct result. At the end of 1865 it was
stated by the authorities that there was far less misery and distress
about the streets of London than was the case before the Act came into
force. The Newport Market Refuge, as it was called, did admirable work.
A Boys’ Industrial School was also soon established there--for many
of the casuals were friendless, little, half-starved, half-naked boys
between the ages of five and twelve.
Mrs. Gladstone not only wrote appeals for funds and enlisted the
sympathy of the _Times_, but regularly visited the Refuge and the
School, and used to make excellent little speeches to the boys, full
of kindness and admirable advice. In 1882 the old buildings were
condemned, and after temporary housing in Long Acre, the Refuge and
School went into a building of its own in what is now Greencoat Place,
Westminster. The Refuge ceased to exist after 1905, but the Boys’
School is still carried on as the Newport Market Army Training School,
and does excellent work.
There were many other sides to Mrs. Gladstone’s philanthropic work. She
was a constant visitor to the London Hospital in Whitechapel, and when
cholera broke out in 1866, instead of seeking to avoid infection and
the distressing sights of a large hospital at the time of an epidemic,
she only redoubled her zeal. She was indeed one of the very first
to face all the difficulties when most people were panic-stricken
for fear of infection. She moved freely about the wards among the
patients, speaking kindly words of comfort and encouragement. She saw
that one great necessity was a place to which convalescent patients,
especially children, could be sent, and she made a public appeal for
funds wherewith to provide such accommodation. Mainly through her
instrumentality and exertions a sum of £70,000 was soon subscribed.
Convalescent homes are now regarded as indispensable, and their
existence taken as a matter of course, but Mrs. Gladstone’s share
in promoting the good work that led to that result can scarcely be
overrated. It is said that in the beginning a few of the convalescent
children wrapped in blankets were received in an attic in Downing
Street until suitable shelter could be provided. The Home was
established first at Snaresbrook, and then removed to Woodford, on the
borders of Epping Forest, as “Mrs. Gladstone’s Free Convalescent Home
for the poor, more especially of the east of London.” In considering
the history of such institutions, it must be remembered that it was
Mrs. Gladstone who initiated the system of giving the subscribers no
privileges either in admitting patients or in the management of the
Home. The money was handed over to the Committee who were responsible
for everything, and applications for admission were made as simple
as possible. Mrs. Gladstone herself attended the meetings of the
Convalescent Home Selection Committee at the London Hospital, and made
patient and sympathetic inquiries of the applicants. She also on those
occasions, as far as her time allowed, visited the wards and showed her
interest in patients and nurses. And she often paid the patients at
Woodford Hall visits which were a source of intense pleasure. She had
the gift when talking to them of conveying her real personal interest
in them each individually, and they felt no shyness in her society.
Sometimes she would sit down at the piano and play dance music for
them; they generally chose country dances like Sir Roger de Coverley
in which the older people could join, and a very merry time they had.
Her visits ceased in 1894, but her interest never flagged. During the
last weeks of Mr. Gladstone’s illness, a letter of application to her
from a girl who wished to be received into the Home was put aside
and forgotten. When Mrs. Gladstone came across it she was terribly
concerned lest her inadvertence, which any one would have excused at
such a time,[74] had caused a delay that should have done the girl any
hurt. Happily it was not too late for her admission. It may be stated
that 33,000 patients were admitted to the Home down to the end of 1897.
It was removed to Mitcham, Surrey, in 1900.