The Grand Old Man by Richard B. Cook
page 13 of 386 (03%)
page 13 of 386 (03%)
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fourth premiership, would embrace in every important respect not only
the history of the British Empire, but very largely the international events of every nation of the world for more than half a century. William Ewart Gladstone, M.P., D.C.L., statesman, orator and scholar, was born December 27, 1809, in Liverpool, England. The house in which he was born, number 62 Rodney Street, a commodious and imposing "double-fronted" dwelling of red brick, is still standing. In the neighborhood of the Rodney Street house, and a few years before or after the birth of William E. Gladstone, a number of distinguished persons were born, among them William Roscoe, the writer and philanthropist, John Gibson, the sculptor, Doctor Bickersteth, the late Bishop of Ripon, Mrs. Hemans, the poetess, and Doctor James Martineau, Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Manchester New College, and the brother of Harriet Martineau, the authoress. The Gladstone family, or Gledstanes, which was the original family name, was of Scottish origin. The derivation of the name is obvious enough to any one familiar with the ancestral home. A _gled_ is a hawk, and that fierce and beautiful bird would have found its natural refuge among the _stanes_, or rocks, of the craggy moorlands which surround the "fortalice of gledstanes." As far back as 1296 Herbert de Gledstane figures in the Ragman Roll as one of the lairds who swore fealty to Edward I. His descendants for generations held knightly rank, and bore their part in the adventurous life of the Border. The chief stock was settled at Liberton, in the upper part of Clydesdale. It was a family of Scottish lairds, holding large estates in the sixteenth century. The estate dwindled, and in the beginning of the seventeenth century passed out of their hands, except the adjacent property of Authurshiel, which remained in their possession for a hundred years longer. A younger |
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