Politics
Gladstone was also interested in politics. He was in favour of a qualified reform of the franchise and of Greek independence during the 1820s. At first he was a Whig, but he came to support the Tory George Canning, and became a Tory. In 1812 he presided over a meeting at Liverpool which was called to invite Canning to represent Liverpool in the House of Commons. Gladstone wanted to represent Liverpool himself, but this never happened. Instead, he was Member of Parliament for Lancaster (1818–1820), Woodstock (1820–1826), and Berwick-upon-Tweed (1826–1827). This rejection by Liverpool soured his relationship with the city. William Gladstone began his political career as a right-wing Tory like his father, before becoming a Liberal Prime Minister.
Read more about this topic: Sir John Gladstone, 1st Baronet
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto—God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
“If American politics are too dirty for women to take part in, there’s something wrong with American politics.”
—Edna Ferber (1887–1968)
“They who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. Their measures are half measures and makeshifts merely. They put off the day of settlement, and meanwhile the debt accumulates.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)