It is a small volume - less than 100 pages with a dark blue, scarlet & gold cover. The Liberal Leader: Anecdotes of Gladstone by An Oxford Man, jointly published by Joseph Toulson with Hamilton, Adams & Co of London*. The name Arthur P Gilman is inscribed on the flyleaf together with the date 10-4-10 so it is now more than a century old.
I reproduce one anecdote in its entirety, just to give the flavour.
"A number of excursionists from Bolton, Lancashire, came to Hawarden for the purpose of strolling in the Park & having a look at Mr Gladstone. Amongst the number was a photographer, who conceived the idea of taking the Premier’s portrait in the act of felling a tree. He, however, failed to induce him to stand for the picture. Disappointed & crest-fallen, he made his way back towards Broughton Station. On the road he fell in with a resident of Hawarden, to whom he told his grief. The villager persuaded him to return, & promised to do his best to influence Mrs Gladstone to induce her husband to have his likeness taken. He succeeded. Mr Gladstone striped off his coat & vest, & with braces down, & axe in hand, was photographed by the Bolton artist. The photo had an enormous sale, & it is said that the photographer made his fortune by it."
Well it cannot be the same photograph included in my previous post – I expect that despite Gladstone’s reluctance on this occasion he probably posed for many such.
How interesting though to hear of another wife whose superior PR skills softened the image of her husband who had been, by common consent, one of our greatest Chancellors & went on to become (in the eyes of some) an equally great prime minister, but who suffered from deep psychological flaws
*Google failed to find any record of it, as curiously does the British Library catalogue, though it has a shorter book of the same title by an author described as both an Oxford Man & a Hawardenite published in Mold in 1884
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