3-085-911 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Forest House, the residence of Mr. Gladstone during his stay at Bournemouth, March 1898. 'A considerable crowd assembled at Waterloo Station to watch the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, who were accompanied by Mr. Henry Gladstone, Miss Helen Gladstone, and Dr. Habershon, and among the personal friends who saw the travellers off were Lord Welby and Sir Algernon West. Mr. Gladstone, it was remarked, seemed to require only the slightest support in walking from his carriage to the train, and again, on arrival at Bournemouth, from the train to Lord Vernon's carriage, such assistance as wars given him by his son being seemingly necessitated more by his eyesight trouble than by any failure of his wonted physical alertness. The unusual cold which set in at Bournemouth with last week's fall of snow kept Mr. Gladstone indoors for the first two days of his sojourn, but by the third day he was able to take the air in the grounds of Forest House, his temporary residence, which faces southward, and is admirably sheltered from cold winds'. Former British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone died on 19 May 1898. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.