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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 July 2017
The recent rediscovery of Herbert Gladstone’s rather fragmentary journal for 1880-85 has made it possible to throw more light on the Irish situation as seen through liberal eyes in the period leading up to the ‘ Kilmainham treaty ’. We wish to thank Sir William Gladstone, Bt, firstly for locating the journal at Hawarden Castle, Flintshire, and secondly for his good offices in making available for publication the section relating to Irish affairs in 1881-2. The irregularly kept volume extends to about 250 quarto pages, but apart from the entries made in 1881-2 it contains little material of more than marginal significance.
1 Tuke, James Hack, quaker philanthropist, Irish distress and its remedies: the land question: a visit to Donegal and Connaught in the spring of 1880 (six editions, London, 1880-Google Scholar); Cant-Wall, E., Ireland under the land act (London, 1882 Google Scholar), collected reports made in autumn 1881 by the special correspondent of the Standard; Dun, Finlay, Land lords and tenants in Ireland (London, 1881 Google Scholar), an investigation into various estates on behalf of The Times; Shaw-Lefevre, G. J., Incidents of coercion: a journal of visits to Ireland in 1882 and 1888 (London, 1888), pp 1–13 Google Scholar, reprinted with slight changes in his Gladstone and Ireland (London, 1912), pp 175-84; Lloyd, Charles Dalton Clifford, Ireland under the Land League: a narrative of personal experiences, with a biographical notice of the author (Edinburgh and London, 1892)Google Scholar; Pomfret, John E., The struggle for land in Ireland 1800-1923 (Princeton, 1930 Google Scholar; reprint, New York, 1969), ch. iv-vi; O’Neill, Brian, The war for the land in Ireland (London, 1933 Google Scholar); Palmer, Norman D., The Irish Land League crisis (New Haven, 1940 Google Scholar); Corfe, Tom, The Phoenix Park murders: conflict, compromise and tragedy in Ireland, 1879-82 (London, 1968 Google Scholar).
2 Of the relevant memoirs, none is more useful or more commonly neglected than the privately printed Memoir of Earl Cow per, K.G., by his wife (London, 1913). An important version of the ‘Kilmainham treaty’ is to be found in Chamberlain, Joseph, A political memoir 1880-92, ed. Howard, C. H. D. (London, 1953 Google Scholar). Further insight into the Forster regime is provided by Hawkins, Richard, ‘Gladstone, Forster, and the release of Parnell, 1882-8’ in I.H.S., v, no. 64 (Sept. 1969), pp 417–45 Google Scholar. The O’Shea MSS in the National Library of Ireland are among the more easily overlooked sources for the negotiations of spring 1882.
Recently discovered correspondence between Cowper and Gladstone at this time, lent by Cowper to Morley and not returned, may be found in the W E. Gladstone MSS, new deposit, B.M., Add. MS 56453. These papers consist of nineteen letters from Cowper to W. E. Gladstone, 1880-September 1881, of a generally superficial character, and one letter from Cowper to W. E. Gladstone, 2 May 1882, protesting against the way he had been kept totally ignorant, especially by Forster, about the negotiations for the release of suspects.
An anonymously compiled pamphlet, The Kilmainham (Edinburgh and London, 1883: W Blackwood and Sons, 24 pp) contains useful extracts from press and parliamentary reports, designed to show the Kilmainham episode in the blackest colours.
3 Mrs Gladstone, speaking in Aug. 1888 to her son’s friend (Sir) Edward Russell, the Liverpool editor, gave a slightly different version. She claimed it was Forster who first persuaded Herbert Gladstone to enter politics by standing for Middlesex in April 1880 ( SirRussell, E., That reminds me, London, 1899, p. 109 Google Scholar).
4 Appointment announced in press, 17 Aug. 1881; returned unopposed at consequential Leeds by-election, 23 Aug. 1881, after a brief visit involving two speeches, in neither of which did he refer to home rule. His remarks on Ireland concentrated exclusively on the land act as a final solution to ‘remove any seeds of agitation’
5 SirMallet, G., Herbert Gladstone, a memoir (London, 1932), p. 88 Google Scholar.
6 Grosvenor’s papers have definitely been destroyed, according to private information received by the editors in correspondence with Huxley, Gervas arising from his Victorian duke: the life of Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, first duke of Westminster (London, 1967 Google Scholar). Forster’s main papers have probably also been largely destroyed, but certain items relevant to his régime in Ireland have survived in family hands.
7 Herbert Gladstone to H. Arnold-Forster, 20 July 1888, printed in The Times, 3 Aug. 1888, p. 10.
8 He ‘enjoyed his month’s outing very much’, he wrote to his brother after visiting the most troubled parts of Ireland (Herbert to Henry Glad stone, 14 Dec. 1881, Glynne-Gladstone MSS).
9 Shown by Forster to H. Gladstone, i Dec. 1881, B.M., Add. MS 46049, f. 75: and Forster to W. E. Gladstone, 4 Dec. 1881, B.M., Add. MS 44159, f. 123, about the forwarding of letters, written primarily for Forster, by H. Gladstone dated 30 Nov. and 3 Dec.
10 William Henry Gladstone (1840-91), eldest son of the statesman: junior lord of the treasury 1869-74, and M.P.(Lib.) Chester 1865-8, Whitby 1868-80, and E. Worcs. 1880-5.
11 W E. Gladstone to Forster, 24 Nov. 1881, B.M., Add. MS 44159, f. in.
12 Press Association report, Freeman’s Journal, 13 Oct. 1881, p. 5.
18 Journal, 4 Aug. 1881. His comment on Churchill (1881) was however sharper still: ‘a vile little cur’.
14 Early in 1882 he persuaded Forster to release William O’Brien on health grounds ( Gladstone, Viscount, After thirty years (London, 1928), pp 181–2 Google Scholar), but no reference to this occurs either in the diary or in the Herbert Gladstone MSS in the British Museum.
15 See appendix to part 11 of this document.
16 Cf. J. A. Godley to H. Gladstone, 5 Jan. 1882, B.M., Add. MS 46049, f. 107: ‘I think Mr Forster is quite right to make you speak on the address’
17 B.M., Add. MS 48632, ff 43, 47.
18 Herbert Gladstone to Cope, copy, 28 June 1882, B.M., Add. MS 46049, f. 246.
19 Gowper wanted to resign in Dec. 1881 but agreed, at Gladstone’s request, to stay on for at least another three months. Nothing more was done to settle his future until 20 Apr. 1882 when Forster, without adequate explanation, secured his resignation, although in full agreement with him on the need to renew and strengthen coercion. Gowper’s resignation was essentially the result, not of Kilmainham (of which he knew nothing), but of Forster’s total inability to get on with an equally reactionary colleague> In 1886 Cowper spoke in favour of a resolution to abolish the lord-lieutenancy, partly because its purely social functions were redundant, partly because it involved responsibility without power (Hansard 3, cccii, 287-90, 25 Jan. 1886).
20 ‘O’Hagan is of no use. No one is of the slightest use except Tom Burke, and if he is knocked up and fell ill, we should be done for’ (Cowper to Spencer, 20 Dec. 1880, in Earl Cowper, p. 450).
21 Forster to W E. Gladstone, 13 Oct. 1881, B.M., Add. MS 44159, f. 63.
22 The most striking instance of changed attitudes on both sides came at the 1886 election, when he reported to his elder brother that the Parnellites were ‘pressing me strongly’ to stand for Londonderry City (Herbert to Henry Gladstone, 17 June 1886, Glynne-Gladstone MSS).
23 Herbert Gladstone MSS, B.M., Add. MS 46049, f. 70.
24 H. Gladstone to William Haley of Hamilton, Lanarkshire, 20 Feb. 1883, Haley MSS, N.L.I., MS 3905, f. 36.
25 Cf. T. Corfe, Phoenix Park murders, p. 154, where Herbert Glad stone appears fleetingly as returning from his Irish visit convinced that Forster was ‘deluding himself as to the efficacy of his methods’ This version of events awards more consistency and rationality than is deserved to the behaviour of Forster and W E. Gladstone at the time of the Kilmainham treaty, when the former, through ill-temper, and the latter, through opportunism, entered into black and white opposition which grew up in a matter of days and bore little relation to previous attitudes.
26 SirReid, Thomas Wemyss, Life of the Right Hon. W E. Forster (London, 1888), ii, p. 413 Google Scholar.
27 All enquiries concerning this collection should be made to The County Archivist, Flintshire County Record Office, Hawarden, Flintshire. We wish to acknowledge the generous help given us by Mr Veysey, the county archivist, and his colleague Mr Williams in the preparation of this article. Mr Richard Hawkins has provided us with information and comments which were much valued. We were also fortunate to be able to draw on the special knowledge of Mr G. Õ Tuathaigh.
28 Society’s stubborn determination to carry on the usual round of engagements regardless of the discontent in the country at large is vividly described by Mrs Humphry Ward, a relative of Forster, in her memoirs. Referring to a visit to Dublin Castle in Dec. 1880 she writes of ‘the keeping up of a brave social show like some pageant seen under a thundercloud ‘( MrsWard, Humphry, A writer’s recollections, London, 1919, p. 176 Google Scholar).