ABSTRACT
When Gorst returned to the back-benches in the summer of 1902, a year and a half after Queen Victoria’s death, he could look back on some 13½ years as a government minister. It was an unusually long, though interrupted, spell. Few people, if any, have been effectively Minister of Education for seven years. For his service he was awarded a pension of £1,200 p.a. (c. £66,600 now), paid out of a fund available for ex-ministers. MPs did not receive a salary until 1911, and this pension would enable Gorst to live in some comfort.
