II
Although the greater part of Mrs. Gladstone’s time was given to the care of her husband and of her children, and to the social duties entailed by her position, she found sufficient leisure during the period we have traversed to initiate and carry through philanthropic work of an important and useful kind, involving a large amount of actual personal service.
She began by visiting the House of Charity in Soho, founded in 1846, to provide shelter for a few of those persons, not of the ordinary vagrant class, who through misfortune or ill-health had become homeless wanderers, but could not bring themselves to ask for poor-law relief, and indeed for many reasons would not have been received into the casual wards of the workhouses. Mrs. Gladstone soon saw that something further was needed. Throughout her life she was a most successful beggar. She raised the sum of £1200 among her friends, rented some disused slaughter-houses in Newport Market, made the necessary alterations, and early in 1864 the place was opened as a Night Refuge. In October a woman’s ward was added. All this was done mainly through Mrs. Gladstone’s exertions. The interest of the public was thereby aroused in the question of casual relief, and the passing of the Houseless Poor Act[73] was the direct result. At the end of 1865 it was stated by the authorities that there was far less misery and distress about the streets of London than was the case before the Act came into force. The Newport Market Refuge, as it was called, did admirable work. A Boys’ Industrial School was also soon established there—for many of the casuals were friendless, little, half-starved, half-naked boys between the ages of five and twelve.
Mrs. Gladstone not only wrote appeals for funds and enlisted the sympathy of the Times, but regularly visited the Refuge and the School, and used to make excellent little speeches to the boys, full of kindness and admirable advice. In 1882 the old buildings were condemned, and after temporary housing in Long Acre, the Refuge and School went into a building of its own in what is now Greencoat Place, Westminster. The Refuge ceased to exist after 1905, but the Boys’ School is still carried on as the Newport Market Army Training School, and does excellent work.
There were many other sides to Mrs. Gladstone’s philanthropic work. She was a constant visitor to the London Hospital in Whitechapel, and when cholera broke out in 1866, instead of seeking to avoid infection and the distressing sights of a large hospital at the time of an epidemic, she only redoubled her zeal. She was indeed one of the very first to face all the difficulties when most people were panic-stricken for fear of infection. She moved freely about the wards among the patients, speaking kindly words of comfort and encouragement. She saw that one great necessity was a place to which convalescent patients, especially children, could be sent, and she made a public appeal for funds wherewith to provide such accommodation. Mainly through her instrumentality and exertions a sum of £70,000 was soon subscribed. Convalescent homes are now regarded as indispensable, and their existence taken as a matter of course, but Mrs. Gladstone’s share in promoting the good work that led to that result can scarcely be overrated. It is said that in the beginning a few of the convalescent children wrapped in blankets were received in an attic in Downing Street until suitable shelter could be provided. The Home was established first at Snaresbrook, and then removed to Woodford, on the borders of Epping Forest, as “Mrs. Gladstone’s Free Convalescent Home for the poor, more especially of the east of London.” In considering the history of such institutions, it must be remembered that it was Mrs. Gladstone who initiated the system of giving the subscribers no privileges either in admitting patients or in the management of the Home. The money was handed over to the Committee who were responsible for everything, and applications for admission were made as simple as possible. Mrs. Gladstone herself attended the meetings of the Convalescent Home Selection Committee at the London Hospital, and made patient and sympathetic inquiries of the applicants. She also on those occasions, as far as her time allowed, visited the wards and showed her interest in patients and nurses. And she often paid the patients at Woodford Hall visits which were a source of intense pleasure. She had the gift when talking to them of conveying her real personal interest in them each individually, and they felt no shyness in her society. Sometimes she would sit down at the piano and play dance music for them; they generally chose country dances like Sir Roger de Coverley in which the older people could join, and a very merry time they had. Her visits ceased in 1894, but her interest never flagged. During the last weeks of Mr. Gladstone’s illness, a letter of application to her from a girl who wished to be received into the Home was put aside and forgotten. When Mrs. Gladstone came across it she was terribly concerned lest her inadvertence, which any one would have excused at such a time,[74] had caused a delay that should have done the girl any hurt. Happily it was not too late for her admission. It may be stated that 33,000 patients were admitted to the Home down to the end of 1897. It was removed to Mitcham, Surrey, in 1900.
It should be remembered that in the years when Mrs. Gladstone was most active in her ministrations there were no motor-cars, and indeed no quick and convenient communication between the west end of London and the Whitechapel Road, and it is marvellous how she found time to do all she did. She mostly went down to Whitechapel by omnibus and train, travelling third class. On one occasion there was a lady in the train with whom Mrs. Gladstone entered into conversation and who confided her troubles. It seemed her husband had an appointment in Australia, but she could not accompany him as they had not money enough to pay the passage for both. In talking Mrs. Gladstone passed the station at which she should have got out, and on looking in her purse found she had no money, having expended what she had on her return ticket. Thereupon she borrowed some from the lady, giving her name and address, and told her if she would call next day she would in the meanwhile see what could be done to help her. When the lady told her husband of the adventure, he said, “Well, you must be green. As if Mrs. Gladstone would travel third class and be without any money!” He insisted on accompanying his wife next day, fearing some hoax. To his surprise she was let in to the house, and he walked up and down till she came out in a great state of joy. Mrs. Gladstone had been at a dinner-party the night before and had collected £70, a sum she had just handed to her for her journey!
But Mrs. Gladstone’s charities were not confined to the east end of London. She established an orphanage and an asylum for aged women at Hawarden, and during the distress that prevailed among the cotton operatives in Lancashire at the time of the American Civil War, Mr. Gladstone gave employment to some of the men in making footpaths in Hawarden park and woods, an improvement of the property that had been long meditated. Mrs. Gladstone invited the men to bring with them their unemployed daughters, asked her brother to give her the use of an old house—a former dower-house—situated in the courtyard of the castle, fitted it up as a house for the girls, and had them trained in domestic work; as soon as they attained some degree of efficiency she found them situations. Others then came from Lancashire to take their places at the Home.
Later on, after the cholera outbreak in London, she brought to Hawarden some of the orphans[75] she had taken charge of at Clapton and lodged them in a smaller house; they attended the village school and were taught trades. When the Lancashire trouble was past, and the hands had returned to the mills, the orphans were transferred to the larger house, where thirty children could be accommodated. It has only lately been given up. The smaller house then became a Home for aged women. When Mrs. Gladstone was at Hawarden, she paid frequent visits to the Orphanage and Home, accompanied generally by her daughters and any lady who chanced to be staying with them.
In the forties of last century the only political work in which women took any part was in canvassing, and even that was done individually without any sort of organisation. Women did not speak on public platforms, did not form political associations, and although the wives of the great politicians in or out of office talked freely of all that was going on, and undoubtedly had through their husbands and their men friends great influence on affairs in many ways, it never occurred to them to band themselves into an organisation or to demand the Vote. Yet women had managed to effect important social reforms. Elizabeth Fry as early as 1813 brought the conditions of prison life into notice, and reforms were instituted. Elizabeth Barrett Browning helped to better the conditions of the children who worked in mines and factories,[76] and Helen Taylor through her public spirit brought about drastic reforms in the industrial schools of London, to mention only a few instances that, were this a suitable place, might easily be multiplied. Mrs. Gladstone did her share of canvassing, and especially helped her husband in the Oxford election of 1847. She was said to be very skilful at the work and hard to resist. But it was not until Gladstone’s Midlothian Campaign of 1879 that there arose any thought of political organisation among women. A presentation was made to him and Mrs. Gladstone at Dalkeith[77] of an album of photographic views of Scottish scenery from the ladies of the county, and a velvet tablecover from the women workers at a carpet factory at Lasswade. In acknowledging the gifts, Mr. Gladstone spoke of those political interests which appealed more especially to women, and pointed out how women might assist in the regeneration of the world. Addressing the women present he said:
“The harder and sterner and drier lessons of political economy are little to your taste. You do not concern yourselves with abstract propositions. It is that side of politics that is associated with the heart of man that I must call your side of politics.” He then pointed out how “peace” was the one thing that must make a strong appeal to women, and how they could do much to influence its preservation among the nations; and to prevent the “mischief, indescribable and unredeemable, of causeless and unnecessary war.” At the same time Gladstone made it clear that he knew that the state of society did not permit a vow of universal peace and the renunciation in all cases of the alternative of war. He concluded his address by an appeal to women to bear their part in the crisis, and thought that he was making no inappropriate demand but was asking them as women “to perform a duty which belongs to you, which, so far from involving any departure from your character as woman, is associated with the fulfilment of that character and the performance of its duties, and the neglect of which would in some future time be to you a source of pain, but the accomplishment of which will serve to build your future years with sweet remembrances, and which will warrant you in hoping that each of you, within your own place and sphere, has raised your voice for justice, and striven to mitigate the sorrows and misfortunes of mankind.”
The appeal was to bear great fruit. Towards the end of 1880, after the General Election of that year placed the Liberal party in power, small associations of women Liberals began to be formed in London and the Provinces, and by the spring of 1886 there were about fifteen of such associations in existence. But it was not until 1887 that the central organisation of the Women’s Liberal Federation was formed, with Mrs. Gladstone as president. The inaugural meeting was held, 25th February 1887, with Mrs. Gladstone in the chair. Thus Mrs. Gladstone was seventy-five years of age before she took any really active part in politics, or made any speeches from a public platform. Her voice, though very sweet, was not strong, and she could only be heard by those seated in her immediate neighbourhood; her ingrained lack of method prevented her ever properly grasping the technical routine of a public meeting. But others more efficient in such matters were always ready to help her through, and there is no question that her acceptance of the presidency made for the strength of the Federation, and caused it to count in the political world. Her record as wife, mother, and philanthropist was a fine one, and it was felt that, combining in perfection as she did the new and the old ideal of woman’s mission and work, she was eminently the right person in the right place. In her inaugural address she said that she understood there were a number of women anxious to work for the Liberal cause and able to do so with advantage. Such work on the part of women should be open and clear and carried on by direct not by backstairs influence. She herself held rather old-fashioned views regarding the part to be taken by women in the world’s work, but they could all, without in any way impairing their efficiency as women, help the Liberal cause, which had always been one of progress and justice. She was present at meetings wherever she could manage it, most often arranged in conjunction with some speech of her husband, as at Nottingham in October 1887, or at Birmingham in November 1888, where, in referring to the Irish question, she pointed out how women could do great things for the cause with gentleness, patience, kindness, and charity, by tenderly and quietly educating and not quarrelling with their opponents. “We must persevere, combining our efforts, reassuring the doubtful, stimulating the weak, working and waiting with courage and with faith.” In May 1889 the annual meeting of the Federation was held in London during the sittings, as it chanced, of the Parnell Commission, at which Mrs. Gladstone was a regular attendant. The forty associations of 1887 had increased to 133, with over 43,000 women members in 1890, and in that year the question of their attitude towards woman suffrage had to be considered. It led to a split in the camp, but contrary to expectation Mrs. Gladstone continued her presidency of the old society, which now put the Parliamentary enfranchisement of women in the forefront of its objects; but while she did not feel keen about it, and had no inclination personally to advocate it, she saw that it had become a question of the hour, and the fact that the Federation supported it did not seem to her a sufficient reason for resigning, especially as the party were straining every nerve to bring Mr. Gladstone back to power, and the Whips desired to retain the influence that was wielded by her position as president. But when Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister again in 1892, there was no longer a special reason for the continuance of the office, and in October she signified her intention of resigning: “I have already on my hands,” she wrote to Lady Aberdeen, “as much as I can do, and every year makes it more necessary for me to be free from any extra cares and responsibilities.”
Mrs. Gladstone’s active political work was undertaken solely because she thought she could thereby be useful to her husband and the causes he had so deeply at heart. It extended only over some half-dozen years, from her seventy-fifth to her eighty-first year. She disliked publicity, though she was quite ready to accept the share of it inevitable from her husband’s great position, but she had no idea of aggrandising women as women, of setting sex against sex; she believed that organisation would enable women to take their share of the larger life of the world without any risk of hurting “distinctive womanhood,” and her own life set an example of the possibility for a woman to gain mental breadth without failing in “childward care” or losing “the childlike in the larger mind.”