page_title: William Ewart Gladstone
section_title: Opposition (1855–1859)
hierarchical_section_title: William Ewart Gladstone / Opposition (1855–1859)
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of the British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone painted by George Frederic Watts in 1859
context_page_description: William Ewart Gladstone PC FRS FSS was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four terms beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times.
  Gladstone was born in Liverpool to Scottish parents. He first entered the House of Commons in 1832, beginning his political career as a High Tory, a grouping which became the Conservative Party under Robert Peel in 1834. Gladstone served as a minister in both of Peel's governments, and in 1846 joined the breakaway Peelite faction, which eventually merged into the new Liberal Party in 1859. He was Chancellor under Lord Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell. Gladstone's own political doctrine—which emphasised equality of opportunity and opposition to trade protectionism—came to be known as Gladstonian liberalism. His popularity amongst the working-class earned him the sobriquet "The People's William".
  In 1868, Gladstone became Prime Minister for the first time.
context_section_description: The Conservative Leader Lord Derby became Prime Minister in 1858, but Gladstone—who like the other Peelites was still nominally a Conservative—declined a position in his government, opting not to sacrifice his free trade principles.
  Between November 1858 and February 1859, Gladstone, on behalf of Lord Derby's government, was made Extraordinary Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands embarking via Vienna and Trieste on a twelve-week mission to the southern Adriatic entrusted with complex challenges that had arisen in connection with the future of the British protectorate of the United States of the Ionian Islands.
  In 1858, Gladstone took up the hobby of tree felling, mostly of oak trees, an exercise he continued with enthusiasm until he was 81 in 1891. Eventually, he became notorious for this activity, prompting Lord Randolph Churchill to observe: "For the purposes of recreation he has selected the felling of trees; and we may usefully remark that his amusements, like his politics, are essentially destructive. Every afternoon the whole world is invited to assist at the crashing fall of some beech or elm or oak. The forest laments in order that Mr Gladstone may perspire."Less noticed at the time was his practice of replacing the trees felled by planting new saplings.
  Gladstone was a lifelong bibliophile. In his lifetime, he read around 20,000 books, and eventually owned a library of over 32,000.
caption: Gladstone in 1859, painted by George Frederic Watts.
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