William Ewart Gladstone , Prime Minister of England in four times
William Ewart Gladstone , Prime Minister of England in four times William Ewart Gladstone, the fourth son of Sir John Gladstone, was born in Liverpool on 29th December, 1809. Gladstone was a MP and a successful merchant. The Gladstones were a rich family, their fortune based on transatlantic corn and tobacco trade and on the slave-labour sugar plantations they owned in the West Indies. (1) John Gladstone was a devout Presbyterian, but there was no Scottish church in Liverpool and in 1792 he and other Scots living in the city organised the building of a Scottish chapel and the Caledonian School opposite it for the education of their children. (2) Gladstone was therefore born into an evangelical family who held strong religious beliefs. He later wrote: "The Evangelical movement... did not ally itself with literature, art and general cultivation; but it harmonized well with the money-getting pursuits." (3) William was educated at Eton and Christ College. At the ...