ABSTRACT
William Ewart Gladstone was one of the longest-serving members of the British House of Commons, having sat as an MP for over sixty years. He began his career as a backbencher in Sir Robert Peel’s ‘Conservative’ Party and he ended it as the personification of Victorian Liberalism. Gladstone was a political figure of almost unequalled importance in Victorian Britain, and he generated feelings of hatred and adulation on a grand scale. Gladstone was an archetypal Victorian husband and father, and his relationships with wife and children were sources of both support and tension to him. Gladstone was a most important figure in his day, although his public life had its successes and failures. To be a successful politician involves remaining in public life and, perhaps, more importantly, making an impact on it by securing the implementation of favoured policies. Gladstone certainly made an impact on Victorian society.
