ABSTRACT
When William Ewart Gladstone took office as prime minister in December 1868, he stood at the head of a relatively united Liberal Party. He was elected on a platform which promised a wide range of reforms, many of which had been on the cards for some years but which Palmerston’s nominally Liberal and Derby and Disraeli’s Conservative governments had not seen fit to pass. One of the best-known reforms enacted by Gladstone’s first ministry is that named after its leading proponent, William Edward Forster, the vice-president of the Committee of the Privy Council for Education, which was passed in 1870. For many at the time, Gladstone’s resignation in February 1874 must have seemed like the end of his political career. Even if Gladstone had decided to retire from politics at this time, it is almost certainly the case that historians would still view his career as a success.
