3-086-315 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Hawarden Castle, Mr. Gladstone's country seat, 1898. British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone '...has passed peacefully to his rest...and Britain mourns a leader fallen. The end has come even sooner than we feared. For two months everyone has been aware that Mr. Gladstone's malady must have a fatal termination, but the physicians spoke hopefully of his being spared until the summer was well advanced. It was at Bournemouth that the aged statesman learned the nature of his disorder...but he longed for Hawarden, and when he knew the worst, his sole request was that he might end his days there...At Hawarden, for the first few days, it seemed as though the change had proved beneficial, but to combat the gradual decay of strength was beyond the physician's art...Members of the family were hurriedly summoned to their father's bedside, where within a few hours they all assembled. The sufferer lay practically unconscious in the wide upper chamber overlooking the Terrace where he had so often delighted thousands by his eloquence. From its windows could be seen, too, those Hawarden woods in which the statesman-forester's axe had rung so cheerily in his prime and vigorous age.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.