Sir Thomas Gladstone, 2nd Baronet

Sir Thomas Gladstone, 2nd Baronet (25 July 1804 – 20 March 1889) was a Tory politician from Liverpool, who returned to the ancestral seat in the Highlands to become a country squire. Less well known than his brother William, Tom, as he was known, was both a principled and honest man who supplied his brother with good advice. Their contrasting characters informed rising social and economic liberalism during the Victorian period. Tom was parsimonious, even mean, while his brother was constantly battling family debts. Life The elder brother of the Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, he was born in Liverpool, the eldest son (and second child) of the wealthy Scottish businessman Sir John Gladstone, 1st Baronet and his second wife Anne MacKenzie Robertson. He was educated at Eton College from 1817. Tom hated Eton, its discipline harsh and irreligious. Disliking the narrow curriculum of classics, he could not translate Latin very well. He found the Dame impossible and the Headmaster had a reputation for flogging, so he asked his father, Sir John, if he could leave the school. His father refused, and this led to yet another beating. He was still there when a younger brother, William arrived in 1821. The next year Tom went up to Christ Church, Oxford. Unelected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Queenborough from 1830 to 1831, he actually lost the poll, but recovered the seat by submission of petition. He remained unabashedly Tory all his life, uncomfortable in the changing politics of the radical 1830s. Gladstone was elected by a majority of the 150 voters for Portarlington in the Irish midlands in 1832, but got on bad terms with the locals. They refused to have him back for the 1835 election by which time the Whig Lord Melbourne was in government. On 7 February 1833 he and his brother lodged at Jermyn Street before they walked down to Westminster, where Tom introduced William to the Commons for the first time. Tom aged 27 was already a member, and a month later found new lodgings at Devonshire House. 160 Tories sat in the reform parliament on the opposition benches, and Tom Gladstone delivered his maiden speech on 21 February. It has been described as a "dim debut" by one historian. He defended his father's credentials and inherited values, in a speech that was mostly an inaudible defence of Liverpool's corrupt local electoral practices.