12 - Gladstone's First Mission

Summary

Historiographical Interpretations

However differently historians judge the impact of Gladstone's four premierships (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886 and 1892–94) on Ireland, their momentous nature is never questioned. To do so would be to deny the constitutional revolution that he instigated by his conversion, during his second period in office, to Home Rule. Nevertheless, there are some very definite areas of contestation and historiographical debate. The first set of these pertain to his motivations. Were they, as traditionalists have argued, coherent and evolutionary throughout? Was his Irish policy reflective of a moral drive to restore justice, a true manifestation of his liberalism? This was the classic thesis of his early biographer, John Morley and also that of J. L. Hammond, the latter defending the noble ‘spirit of his faith in moral forces and the reconciling power of freedom’. Revisionists have cut across this account. They have emphasised motivations that were more pragmatic and party political, and thus subject to all the vagaries that circumstances might imply. John Vincent makes him look more calculating in his approach to Ireland and claims that he adopted Home Rule because there was ‘no other available position’. Michael Winstanley constantly problematises Gladstone's self-presentation as a ‘man in politics’ rather than a politician and insists that pragmatism was his hallmark, particularly from the 1860s onwards. His very liberalism has been called into question – Richard Shannon argues that he became a ‘kind of Liberal’ but did not give up on his more traditionalist credentials.