He is especially known for his enthusiastic support for expanding and strengthening the British Empire in India and Africa as the foundation of British greatness, in contrast to Gladstone's negative attitude toward imperialism.

The Irish Nationalists held the balance of power in Parliament at this time, Gladstone's conversion had convinced them to support the Liberal Government by using the 86 seats of Parliament they controlled.

The historian H. C. G. Matthew states that Gladstone's chief legacy lay in three areas: his financial policy ; his support for Home Rule ( devolution ) that modified the view of the unitary state of the United Kingdom ; and his idea of a progressive, reforming party broadly-based and capable of accommodating and conciliating varying interests, along with his speeches at mass public meetings.

Chamberlain was also influential in the local campaign in support of Gladstone's Irish Disestablishment Bill against the House of Lords's opposition.

He remained Prime Minister until Gladstone's Liberals formed a government with the support of the Irish Nationalist Party, despite the Unionists gaining the largest number of votes and seats in the 1892 general election.

Despite his early support of the Liberal Party, Hardie became disillusioned by William Ewart Gladstone's economic policies and began to feel that the Liberals neither would nor could ever adequately represent the working classes.

In William Ewart Gladstone's first government of 1868 to 1874, Argyll became Secretary of State for India, in which role his refusal to promise support against the Russians to the Emir of Afghanistan helped lead to the Second Afghan War.

He refused to join William Ewart Gladstone's first ministry in 1868, but gave independent support to the chief measures of the government.

As a result, William Ewart Gladstone's Liberal Party formed a minority government that relied upon Irish Nationalist support.

Gladstone's Liberal government had no explicit mandate for the Act, unlike the 1869 Disestablishment Act and so could expect some opposition from the English landlord class in the House of Lords, fearful for the implications of property rights in England, many of whom were Whigs that Gladstone relied on for support in Parliament.

He refused to support Gladstone's Home Rule Bill in 1885 and was one of those who chiefly contributed to its rejection, whose reputation for unbending integrity and intellectual eminence gave solidity to the Liberal Unionist party.

Three months earlier Darwin had backed the outcry against the " Bulgarian horrors " when 15, 000 ( Christian ) Bulgarian rebels were massacred by Muslim " Turkish " troops of the Ottoman Empire, and supported Gladstone's calls for Russian intervention in opposition to the Tory government's support for the Turks.

Politically, he was a Gladstonian Liberal, but he resigned in 1893 rather than support Gladstone's Second Irish Home Rule Bill.

With Gladstone's refusal Derby and Disraeli looked elsewhere and settled on Disraeli's old friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who became Secretary of State for the Colonies ; Derby's son Lord Stanley, succeeded Ellenborough at the Board of Control.

Gladstone During the Midlothian Campaign 1879 Speaking directly to the people for the first time, Gladstone's Midlothian campaign symbolises a major change in the role of the Prime Minister.

in 1868 Gladstone proposed the Irish Church Resolutions to reunite the Liberal Party for government ( on the issue of disestablishment of the Church of Ireland – this would be done during Gladstone's First Government in 1869 and meant that Irish Roman Catholics did not need to pay their tithes to the Anglican Church of Ireland ).

Gladstone's proposals went some way to meet working-class demands, such as the realisation of the free breakfast table through repealing the duties on tea and sugar, and reform of local taxation which was increasing for the poorer ratepayers.

Gladstone's role in the decision to invade was described as relatively hands-off, and that the decision to invade was made by certain members of his cabinet such as Spencer Cavendish, Secretary of State for India, Thomas Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook, First Lord of the Admiralty, Hugh Childers, Secretary of State for War, and Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville, the Foreign Secretary.

The House of Commons adjourned on the afternoon of Gladstone's death, with A. J. Balfour giving notice for an Address to the Queen praying for a public funeral and a public memorial in Westminster Abbey.

While Prince of Wales, he had to be dissuaded from breaking with constitutional precedent by openly voting for Gladstone's Representation of the People Bill ( 1884 ) in the House of Lords.

In another article, " The Liberal Party and Its Leaders ", Chamberlain criticized Gladstone's leadership and advocated a more Radical direction for the party.

Chamberlain's renewed scheme for National Councils was not discussed in Cabinet, and only on 13 March were Gladstone's proposals for Ireland revealed.

Some Liberals believed that Gladstone's Home Rule bill would lead to independence for Ireland and the dissolution of the United Kingdom, which they could not countenance.

On the left is the preserved 17th century townhouse Gladstone's Land owned by the National Trust for Scotland.

Parnell issued a manifesto ' To the people of Ireland ' on 29 November saying a section of the party had lost its independence, and Gladstone's terms for Home Rule were inadequate.

In 1868, Playfair was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for the Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews, being sworn of the Privy Council and made Postmaster General in Gladstone's government in 1873.

He was appointed to the same position from 1880 to 1882 in Gladstone's second government, and after serving as Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty between 1882 and 1884, Campbell-Bannerman was promoted to the Cabinet as Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1884.

In Gladstone's third and fourth governments, in 1886 and 1892 to 1894 respectively, as well as Rosebery's government from 1894 to 1895, he served as Secretary of State for War.

In May 1882, Gladstone's decision to release the Irish Nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell from prison led to the resignation of the hardline Chief Secretary for Ireland, W. E. Forster.

By 1885, Gladstone's second government was in a very weak position, largely as a result of the death of Charles Gordon, and Spencer's efforts to renew the Irish Crimes Act and secure passage of a land purchase bill ran into opposition from the radicals in the Cabinet-Joseph Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke-who hoped to use the opportunity of the legislation to pass a greater measure of local self-government for Ireland.

On Gladstone's return to office in 1880, he was made Chief Secretary for Ireland.

Gladstone's electoral address had promised Home Rule and the disestablishment of the Scottish and Welsh Churches.

Writing to Canon Malcolm MacColl, Salisbury believed that Gladstone's proposals for reform without redistribution would mean " the absolute effacement of the Conservative Party.

Gladstone's first ministry saw many reforms including Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and the introduction of secret voting.

In 1874, when Gladstone published his pamphlet on The Vatican Decrees, Lord Acton wrote during November and December a series of remarkable letters to The Times, illustrating Gladstone's main theme by numerous historical examples of papal inconsistency, in a way which must have been bitter enough to the ultramontane party, but ultimately disagreeing with Gladstone's conclusion and insisting that the Church itself was better than its premises implied.

Opposed Irish Church Act ; assisted in framing future constitution of disestablished Church of Ireland ; opposed Gladstone's first Irish Land Bill of 1870 and Irish University Bill of 1873.

Despite its numerical minority, however, the Church of Ireland remained the official state church until it was disestablished on 1 January 1871 by the Irish Church Act 1869 that was introduced by Gladstone's Liberal government.

Spencer and his new chief secretary, Gladstone's nephew and Hartington's brother Lord Frederick Cavendish, crossed to Ireland on 5 May, but Cavendish and the permanent under-secretary Thomas Henry Burke, were murdered by extremist Irish nationalists the next day in Phoenix Park, Dublin, while walking to the Viceregal Lodge where Spencer was staying.

Cavendish – who was married to Lucy Cavendish the niece of British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, and had worked as Gladstone's personal secretary – had only arrived in Ireland the day he was murdered.

Between 1863 and 1874 Hartington held various Government posts, including lord of the Admiralty and under-secretary for war under Palmerston and Earl Russell, then postmaster-general, and Chief Secretary for Ireland in Gladstone's first government.

He attacked Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill with energy, and gave fiery pro-Union speeches in Ireland.

In 1865 he was appointed a judge of common pleas, and in 1868 became Lord Chancellor of Ireland in William Ewart Gladstone's first administration.

The first bill, with Gladstone's Irish Home Rule speech beseeching parliament to pass the Irish Government Bill 1886 and grant Home Rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to one day in humiliation, was defeated in the Commons by 30 votes ; while the second Irish Government Bill 1893 was passed, but then defeated in the Lords.

The ministry is chiefly remembered for Gladstone's first attempt to introduce the Home Rule Bill for Ireland.

He welcomed Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill as a " pact of peace " between England and Ireland.

The Society's members occupied themselves in applying the ideas of the philosophical school of Comtean positivism to current affairs of the day, including the movement for home rule in Ireland ( which the Society supported, following Gladstone's lead ), the Second Boer War ( which the Society opposed ), and the Indian independence movement ( which the Society supported ).