W. E. Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) was a British statesman who served four times as Prime Minister, in 1868–74, 1880–85, 1886 and 1892–94. The son of a Liverpool merchant, he entered Parliament as a Tory in 1832, moved toward liberalism, and as Chancellor of the Exchequer and then as Liberal leader carried free trade, electoral reform and Irish land legislation, and staked his last years on Home Rule for Ireland. A devout High Churchman and a classical scholar, he published Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age (1858) and other works on Homer and theology. He was known in old age as the Grand Old Man.