For historians and biographers of William Ewart Gladstone, the sheer volume of both primary source materials and academic scholarship relating to one of the towering political figures of the nineteenth-century must surely feel like a weighty burden at times. It is a tribute to the quality of the essays in Gladstone: Ireland and Beyond that they succeed in shedding fresh light on Gladstone’s sustained and contentious involvement with Irish politics and society as well as revealing facets of his engagement with the wider world and, in particular, the issue of empire.

The essays are the result of a 2009 conference at St. Deiniol’s Library in Hawarden, marking the bicentenary of Gladstone’s birth. The conference took place, quite literally, in the shadow of a statue of Gladstone by the Irish sculptor John Hughes, which was originally intended for public display in Dublin. By the time of its completion after the First World War, however, a public site in Dublin was rejected as a location at a time when Irish republicans were targeting imperial monuments for destruction. The statue’s history is the subject of a brief essay by Paula Murphy that serves as a postscript to the volume. The story of the statue at St. Deiniol is a reminder of how Gladstone’s legacy loomed large and his actions during his life continued to set the Irish political agenda for decades after his death, as Eugenio Biagini observes in his essay in the volume, not only for Home Rulers but for British politicians of various persuasions, Unionists in the north and south of Ireland, and, not least, Irish republicans.

The book is divided into four sections (“British Dimensions,” “Irish Settings,” “Matters of the Mind,” and “The World Beyond”) and interrogates a wide range of Gladstone’s activities, interests, and impacts. The opening essays, by Alvin Jackson on Ireland, Scotland, and Home Rule and K. Theodore Hoppen on “Gladstone, Salisbury and the end of Irish assimilation,” both deal with fundamental issues relating to the definition of the United Kingdom and set the stage for the more focused examinations of Gladstone’s life and legacies in subsequent chapters. Jackson explores how Gladstone’s advocacy of Irish Home Rule “simultaneously looks back to the experience of Scotland under the Union, and forward to those seeking more equitable constitutional relationships in the twenty-first century” (23). With a possible referendum on “maximum devolution” for Scotland on the political horizon, Jackson’s analysis of how Scotland helped to shape Gladstone’s concept of Home Rule and, in turn, how “the Irish Question helped Scotland, by helping to make a Scottish question” is particularly timely (40). Hoppen examines a related aspect of Gladstone’s advocacy of Irish self-determination. As he notes, Gladstone’s commitment to Irish land reform and Home Rule was also part of general trend of English thinkers (including many conservatives such as Lord Salisbury) who agreed by the late nineteenth century that the “assimilation” of the Irish into the Union was no longer possible. By the late nineteenth, an “English” Ireland was not a possibility for either Liberals or Conservatives, with implications for the very nature of the United Kingdom.

The volume’s other ten essays range broadly, from Kevin McKenna’s examination of Gladstone’s political uses of his “strictly private and personal” 1877 visit to Ireland (88) and Patrick Maume’s fine analysis of the shifting press coverage of Gladstone by the staunchly Unionist Dublin Evening Mail to John-Paul McCarthy’s exploration of how Gladstone’s understanding of the concept of sovereignty in the history of church-state relations in England shaped his analysis of Home Rule. The latter, McCarthy convincingly argues, was in an important sense “simply a Hibernicized version of his lifelong Anglican historical sensibilities” (166). Other essays explore the issue of Gladstone’s legacies. Melanie Sayers examines Gladstone’s impact on Philip Kerr and the making of the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, while Eugenio Biagini approaches the under-studied issue of Irish historical memory of Gladstone through an examination of the Irish Times and Southern Protestant opinion.

Imperial issues connect many of the volume’s essays. Imperialism is not necessarily a subject associated with Gladstone, as Bernard Porter notes in his essay. While Gladstone’s great political rival and bête noire, Benjamin Disraeli, is justly noted for his imperial zeal, Gladstone actually added more territory to the British Empire during his career as prime minister, notably the 1882 occupation of Egypt. Porter’s essay, while suggestive, is unfortunately the briefest in the collection, and Gladstone’s engagement with empire is explored more fully in other essays. Devon McHugh analyzes the issue of political conflict within Gladstone’s extended family through an examination of the correspondence of Nora Gladstone while her husband, the earl of Belmore, was governor of New South Wales. Quentin Broughall’s examination of Gladstone’s use of classical allusions shows how the Grand Old Man, in characteristically Gladstonian fashion, deployed well-developed comparisons with the ancient Athenian Empire to articulate his vision for how the British Empire “might avoid excess, aggressiveness, acquisitiveness, corruption, and ultimate destruction” (152). David Omissi considers how Gladstone’s vision of a moral and progressive empire had a considerable impact on India. Omissi’s essay also takes note of recent scholarship on Ireland and the British Empire and, in particular, on the multifaceted Indo-Irish relationship, observing, “the interplay between Ireland and India ensured that India’s significance to Gladstone was long-standing, even if he often felt India’s influence only indirectly” (199).

Taken together, the essays in Gladstone: Ireland and Beyond demonstrate the many spheres Gladstone affected and the breadth of his legacy. The essays in the collection accordingly are concerned equally with Gladstone’s life and career and with his legacies. The volume succeeds admirably in its goal of incorporating the work of both established and younger scholars, combining contributions by doctoral students and recent PhDs as well as a number of major scholars of Irish and Imperial history. The essays are overall of a high quality and not only provide historians with a sense of the richness of Gladstonian scholarship but also map out areas for future research.