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:
“The [nineteenth-century] young men who were Puritans in politics were anti-Puritans in literature. They were willing to die for the independence of Poland or the Manchester Fenians; and they relaxed their tension by voluptuous reading in Swinburne.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“While you’re playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely dense person. But just begin a conversation with him about something inedible, politics or science, for instance, and he ends up in a deadend or starts in on such an obtuse and base philosophy that you can only wave your hand and leave.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“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)