Gladstone's Resignation of the Liberal Leadership, 1874-1875

W. E. Gladstone resigned twice as leader of the Liberal Party. His final retirement of 1894 has received much attention, but his resignation two decades earlier is not well known. At age sixty-five, the recent loser in a surprise general election, the former prime minister stepped down from the Liberal leadership in January, 1875. Some observers doubted the permanence of his retirement, but previous speculation about the Liberal succession had assumed that Gladstone could hope at most for one further premiership. After he regained the leadership in 1880 and soldiered on as the Grand Old Man at the head of three further governments, Liberal sympathizers dismissed his 1875 resignation in retrospect as an unrevealing mistake, a temporary meandering from the true path of his career.Recent studies have pointed to the decisive importance of Gladstone's course in the 1870s, especially to the implications of his return to public life. R. T. Shannon ties Gladstone's resignation to his loss of rapport with the popular forces that had once rallied to the banners of Reform and Irish disestablishment. His government's rejection at the polls in 1874 seemed to end “his great romance with the people of England.” Bitter, disillusioned, and mystified about the popular verdict, he resigned his post as Liberal leader. Freed from parliamentary responsibilities, Gladstone went on, almost in spite of his conscious intentions, to capture the soul of popular Liberalism, beginning with his hesitant but inspiring participation in the 1876 agitation against the Bulgarian atrocities, a campaign which held few attractions for the official Liberal hierarchy.