On November 16, The Times reported that students in Liverpool were campaigning to have Gladstone’s name removed from a university building because he was not a strong opponent of slavery, an assertion given credibility by his father’s ownership of sugar plantations in the West Indies. A letter by an academic historian followed which conceded that the students had a point. A letter from Alistair Lexden appeared on November 23.
Sir, Dr Roland Quinault is right that Gladstone devoted less time to slavery than to the numerous other injustices that he sought to correct (Letter, Nov.18) but he was nevertheless totally opposed to slavery. He was one of the founders of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and the Civilisation of Africa in 1839. For years he supported the patrols of Royal Navy vessels off the coasts of Africa, but like many others eventually came to doubt their efficacy. He denounced slavery in the American confederate states as “detestable”. In 1833, as a newly elected MP aged 23, he briefly obeyed his domineering father’s command to speak up for the West Indian planters, but within months he repented of his folly over “this awful and solemn question”, seeking forgiveness from William Wilberforce shortly before the latter’s death.
Lord Lexden
House of Lords